


Her Love of the Written Word

by spirrum



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/M, a making-it-work-despite-our-differences fic, an unconventional courship, beware of metaphors of the literary sort, humour and fluff, the usual suspects make an appearance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-01-17
Updated: 2015-02-14
Packaged: 2018-03-07 22:43:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 33,642
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3185978
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spirrum/pseuds/spirrum
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She's always wanted romance -- she just didn't expect it would come from him of all people.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. your strong and stubborn heart

**Author's Note:**

> A note on the rating: there is some mature content in chapter 7, but it is entirely skippable (you won't miss any of the plot), and the rest of the story will stay at a T rating.

_She is being wooed._

It's not conventional – sweet Andraste it's everything but, and she is justly mortified. He doesn't read her poetry or sing her songs of old ardour because that's not his way. Instead he writes her stories – short excerpts of longer tales, but they're nothing like his novels, oh no. These are different.  _Intimate._  For her eyes alone.  

At first she can't even read them, too horrified to even consider their existence (one slid under her door one evening, another below her pillow, one tucked between the pages of her favourite chapter of  _Swords & Shields _because of course he'd know,  _of course he would_ ). The entire affair is ludicrous and humiliating and – and utterly  _wonderful_  because isn't this what she wants more than anything?

She doesn't look at him – can't look at him because he'll know, oh he'll know the minute he sees her and she can't risk it being just a jest. Part of her (the part that's seen how far he'll go to protect those he cares for, the Champion, the Inquisitor, the woman he's named his crossbow after) doesn't believe him capable of such cruelty, but another part – the one borne of an intimate knowledge of dishonesty and love's own folly – can't be fully convinced. It's self-preservation, and she can't –  _won't_  – risk her heart for a few pretty words on vellum.

And so she doesn't reciprocate – doesn't give him so much as an inkling that she knows of the letters, but that doesn't stop them from coming. Small notes appear among her paperwork (and Maker's mercy but she nearly lost her composure when one fell out on her desk during a meeting!), and she finds a longer, rolled-up parchment tied to the handle of her sword and – she's not even going to bother wondering how it got there without her noticing. 

She's had a glass of wine for courage when she finally relents, and unrolls the most recent letter, her candle burning low in the quiet dark of her private rooms. It's the story of a princess masquerading as a dragonhunter and  _she wants to wring his neck_ , but – it's thrilling and utterly compelling and she reads the whole thing in one sitting until her eyes are straining in the dim candlelight. The princess is aided by a rogue dwarf who commissions her for a rare dragon's tooth, and in return he'll whisk her away from courtly life, her duties and her gilded cage, take her far away and –

And that's it. There's no more, and she wants to tear out her hair because  _she knows what this is._ She's not blind to what he's put before her, finally, after all the notes and the knowing glances. And she's so embarrassed by her own, ridiculous heart that she mutilates the courtyard practice dummies in her outrage. Bull makes a passing comment of praise, but she can't see straight, and stalks back to her rooms in a fury that lasts her most of the day. And it takes her one long and sleepless night of tossing and turning – of restlessly prowling the corridors of the Keep until her anger glows like embers and not a roaring fire – to finally make up her mind. 

He's writing when she arrives the following morning, and she knows he's noticed her coming long before she's standing before his desk. But he doesn't look up until she is, and he takes his time in putting his quill down.

“Seeker,” he greets smoothly, and her heart – _her cursed heart_ – jumps. “Anything I can do for you?”

Oh she wants to strangle him, but – that's not what she's here for, not this time. Perhaps next time if things don't go well, but now...now she does not offer her clenched fists, but her fingers slack with trust, and her palms clammy with something she cannot name (fear, perhaps – no, most likely. Definitely.)

Cassandra breathes and – Maker why are her hands  _shaking,_  around the handle of her sword they never tremble but now she has to tuck them into her elbows under the pretence of crossing her arms. And she feels young and foolish and out of her depth, and there's no experience to draw from, no well of strength to aid her in this battle.

“How does it end?” she asks, finally. 

Varric smiles, and she wants to duck her head but she won't – she's a grown woman and she will stare down any man or dwarf, intimate prose be damned! “You really want to know?”

She wants to snap that  _of course she does, why does he think she is there?_ But then she recognizes the question for what it is – a way out. An escape, if she so desires it, even now when she's put herself at his mercy so.

And it's what gives her the courage to say, “Yes.  _But_ ,” she adds, sharply. “If I at any point wish to...stop reading...if I want to–” Maker what she wouldn't give for his eloquence. She can't butt her head against this obstacle, and her sword is no use, even to protect her own heart. 

He only holds out his hands, and – there's no trace of humour in his smile now, but a sincerity she's not witnessed often. “Then you're free to do so, of course. You won't know how it ends, but I know not all stories go the way we want them to. And if you find you want to pick up  _another_  book...”

“No! " she says quickly, and swallows. “No, I – I would like this one. If–” But she can't say it out loud. Not yet.

But he doesn't make her. Instead he only grins. “Then that's all I need to know. No use writing if you don't have an audience.”

She breathes through her nose. There's a question on her tongue, but the words feel thick and awkward in her mouth. “And am I your... _only_  audience?” It's been on her mind since she'd found that first note – the image of the pretty dwarf who'd shown up and left with his heart, again. She's not one for sharing, and in matters of the heart even less.  _She won't be second in line._

There are words behind his eyes – things for another time, another conversation when things are not so  _new,_  and Cassandra does not pry.

“Yes,” he says then, and there's no hesitation, no waver in his voice as he speaks the word – this single word that carries with it so much more than a simple admission. It's a promise, and Maker take her traitorous heart for leaping. 

Cassandra nods, once. “Good.” She clears her throat. “I must go. We'll...speak of this later.” Stiffly, she turns on her heel, and is almost at the door when his voice stops her,

“You know, if you want I could use your insight on some...potential plot holes.”

She lingers in the doorway. “Yes?”

He smiles, and she wonders how many he's charmed with that gesture alone, nevermind his writing. “I've got some time tonight, if you're free. It's good to get these things sorted before I start writing, you know – to avoid disappointed readers.”

She swallows, and there's heat creeping up the back of her neck. “I would...like that,” she says at length.

He doesn't say anything more on that, but his smile speaks volumes. “Then I'll see you later, Seeker.”

She doesn't trust her voice now – doesn't trust her heart, or her common sense, Andraste have mercy – and with a brusque nod she turns to make her escape before he has a chance to see the blush in her cheeks. The first chapter weighs heavy in her pocket, with his words or the implications of which she doesn't know, but she takes a detour to get back to her rooms–

just in case anyone should notice the smile she cannot quite contain. 


	2. your sure steps, full of foreign grace

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now, I know they are representing a military organization and all, but for the sake of the fic let us pretend that dresses were an option for Wicked Eyes and Wicked Hearts.

The ball at Halamshiral comes as a pleasant distraction, knee-deep in shit as the Inquisition is at present, and Varric finds himself enjoying it, surprisingly enough. But there's good food and ale (or what Orlais tries to pass off as ale, anyhow), and enough good stories to pass the time as their honoured leader lurks the shadows for shifty souls and hearsay.

And – there's the Seeker, who Ruffles has somehow wrangled into a dress for the occasion. It's a dark piece, deep purple folds and with a plunging back that's got to have her feeling exposed – no warrior he's ever known would willingly put on an ensemble like that and go unarmed, but Ruffles is nothing if not terrifyingly convincing (and Varric sincerely doubts Cassandra is entirely without a weapon).

She stays to the sides, trying (and failing) to keep out of sight, but the talk trails at her back in reverent whispers ('What is Lady Pentaghast  _wearing_?', 'Unmarried at that age, imagine!' 'What a posture, so awkward – almost like a man's'), but she bears the blows with her chin held high in defiance, and Varric watches her prowl the edges of the room on restless feet.

She catches his eye across the ballroom and he raises his glass in greeting, and she turns away so fast she almost trips on the hem of her dress. And it takes him a moment and a swig of his drink to make his decision, before he's crossing the room.

“Enjoying yourself, Seeker?”

She looks nothing short of murderous, and Varric smiles. “Absolutely  _not._ I do not see the point in these–” a masked lady whisks past them, laughing shrilly, “ _frivolous_  festivities.” She rubs at her arms, bare but for the thin, see-through sleeves ghosting over her shoulders and the gloves that reach to her elbows.

He doesn't dare risk his health asking if she's nervous, and so instead he tries another route. “Cold?”

She meets his eyes, startled, but quickly regains her practised expression of neutral-with-a-hint-of-disdain. “No. I am just – not used to this... _costume._ ” She clears her throat. “It was Josephine's idea, not mine,” she's quick to declare, as though he'd somehow suspect otherwise.

“You know, you could just call it a  _dress._ ” Her brows furrow, and he grins. “And if it's any consolation I think you look stunning.”

She pretends she hasn't heard him, but he doesn't miss the smile before she smothers it, and her fingers twitch where they brush against the hair at her temple – a nervous gesture she doesn't resort to often, but Varric has made it a personal quest to try to lure it out, along with the sort of smiles that he's only ever seen when she's caught up in one of her books. In his recent experience he's managed the former twice, and if you count his own written repertoire, the latter a vast number of occasions, probably.

Things between them have been progressing...'slowly' is probably something of an understatement, but Varric doesn't  mind. She's not a woman to rush, and not one whose affections are earned easily. But – she'd taken him up on his offer, however hesitantly, and he knows how to count his victories, and with a woman like her it's the little things that speak the loudest.

Like the fact that she's sharing his company, even if her body language alone tells him she'd rather find the nearest corner and stay there for the remainder of the evening. The others appear to be enjoying themselves, but Cassandra is wary here as anywhere else – brows furrowed, mouth pursed and shoulders tense steel-beneath-silk organza.

It's – fascinating, and Varric wonders if she's truly aware of how many pairs of eyes she is drawing.

“Cassandra?”

The voice draws their attention – a smooth, cheerful lilt, a thick accent that's not Orlesian but something else, and out of the crowd slinks a hulking beast of a man with a smile beneath his mask that speaks of such unexpected friendliness, Varric is tempted to keep an extra eye on his moneypurse _._  He knows smiles like that – he's usually the one providing them, and never without a motive. 

But Varric is cheerfully ignored, and before he has a chance to speak up – “Laurence?” And Maker's beardless face, but if there isn't a small note of honest wonder in her voice.

The gentleman bows, politely but not entirely without flair. He's tall – the kind of tall that borders on Qunari standards, and sports a fashionably trimmed beard beneath his gold lion's mask. He looks three different kinds of ridiculous, but Varric keep the opinion to himself.  

“I thought it was you – I'd recognize that stance anywhere.” He laughs. “You look exactly like you did on your sixteenth nameday, when your uncle threw you that ball.” A distinctly appreciative look follows, and his eyes are appraising behind the mask. “Well, not exactly _._  You've finally grown into your mother's cheekbones.”

Cassandra snorts. “And you've not grown out of your needless flattery, I see.” But there's a smile lurking at the corner of her mouth. “It's good to see you, Laurence.”

He bows again, an ostentatious gesture more than anything else. “And you, Cassandra. What has it been now, twenty years?”

“Twenty-five,” she corrects.

He whistles. “Time has been kinder to some of us than others,” he says with a clever wink. Varric refrains from adding his two coppers, amusing as it would no doubt be, but – they're the Inquisitor's company, and their decisions reflect on their leader. A wrong remark to the wrong noble will ensure Ruffles an extra few hours behind her desk writing apologies, and Varric will not be the cause of further shadows under her eyes. 

The man turns to Varric then. “Your friend?”

'Flaunty', Varric decides with a glance at the over-the-top silk coat and breeches, and the rather extensive collection of military ornaments pinned to his breast, seems an apt epithet.

“Oh,” Cassandra says with a jerk, as though she'd momentarily forgotten he was there. He's tempted to make a joke about humans only being able to tell what's at their own eye level, but curbs his tongue. He doesn't wish to be unkind. “This–” She hesitates, words tripping over themselves like they do when she's nervous, and he can tell she doesn't know what to introduce him as.

But he doesn't leave her hanging. “Varric Tethras,” he introduces smoothly and with a practised ease borne of years of dealing with Hightown's nobility. 

The mask shifts with the movement of his brow. “The author of the  _Tale of the Champion_? My, Cass, what interesting company you keep in your Inquisition.”

 _Cass._  It's such a small thing – such a petty, insignificant little thing, but it leaps out from the sentence like a slap. Not even Nightingale calls her that.

But whatever his reaction, neither seem to have noticed, and Varric feels – hells, he doesn't know what he feels, and that's probably the worst alternative.

On the ballroom floor a song comes to an end, followed by polite applause, and as the next picks up a hand is offered. Cassandra starts, clearly caught off guard, but there's no shield at hand to block this advancement.

“Would you care to dance?” Flaunty asks, head tilted curiously though there's a light in his eyes that tells Varric he's a man who expects only one answer. “Like old times?”

She scowls at the hand, but there's uncertainty in the press of her mouth. “I don't remember there being any dancing in those times,” she replies tersely, but not unkindly, and Flaunty laughs.

“Exactly. I was hoping you could help rectify that. For friendship's sake?”

She looks at Varric then, but he doesn't know what she's asking – they've not yet covered aspects like this, in their one-step-forward-two-steps-back...hells, can he even call it a proper courtship yet? And he regrets it now because what else can he do but grin and say,

“I don't think I've ever seen you dance, Seeker.”

It's not permission – she's not a woman who asks for permission – but, it's something else, something close he can't put a name to, and there's a clenching behind his ribs when she reaches out to accept the offered hand. “Fine.  _One dance_.”

Flaunty smiles charmingly. “That's all I ask.”

And then he's leading her towards the dancefloor to join those already gathered, and Varric is left by the refreshments, an array of unnamed feelings and not enough alcohol to drown them. 

Her movements are stiff to begin with, but she knows the steps, he can tell that much, though they are old memories from the hesitant way she goes about executing them – one step, two steps, a twirl. But she's never been ungraceful, and Flaunty knows how to lead, so within moments she's spinning with the ease he's seen her wield before lopping off the heads of unsuspecting darkspawn, except she's bereft of her weapons and there's nothing really enjoyable about  _this_  display.

He's never been one for jealousy. Even with Bianca, there'd always been the knowledge that it could never be, to keep him from truly succumbing. She'd had her husband, her life that's never been his to share and there'd always been an element of unattainability about it that had kept his sanity about him. But –

But Cassandra is not Bianca, and not publicly spoken for in any sense of the word, and judging by the smile on the face of the man leading her across the dancefloor with quick and easy steps, he is well aware.

And Varric  _feels_  it – the stirrings of unease crawling along the skin of his arms, up the back of his neck. It settles somewhere in the pit of his stomach, a heavy thing with sharp edges.

They look right together, as humans do – as  _dwarves_  do. Nearly the same height, she's a few inches shorter and he spins her with an ease that seems almost practised though Varric knows she doesn't dance. And Varric – Varric would never have been able to lead her so effortlessly. There's a potential obstacle they haven't explored yet, and he wonders then, if that bothers her – if it will bother her, in the future.

“That's quite a pensive look for such a lively song.”

He's not surprised when she appears at his elbow, because the Nightingale moves soundlessly in shadows – in a ballroom as crowded as this, she  _is_  a shadow. But her smile rests lighter on her face than it has in weeks, and when she speaks it's with a cheer Varric doesn't feel, but that he does not deny her. “Something on your mind?”

He tries a smile, but it feels forced. “Oh, the usual. Wondering which one of these pompous highbrows will pull a knife by the end of the night.”

She hums. “There are quite a few suspects already,” she says, almost blandly, but there's a knowledge beneath her words that's unavoidable, and so Varric doesn't have to pretend to be looking in any other direction than the one he is.

He doesn't doubt that his notes and letters have passed through her hands – very few things in Skyhold escape her notice – but she doesn't put his secret into words. Instead she remains at his side, watching the couples dancing, eyes holding more secrets in their depths than the room contains and cataloguing more by the second.

Then, “He's of a noble family from Nevarra,” she says, conversationally. “One of the few that have not made an attempt on the throne in the last thirty years. Second son,  _and_  the less successful. There was a scandal last year involving one of the young heirs of the Van Markham family. The rumours were quickly silenced, but you can hear them still, if you listen closely.” She smiles, as though she's just given him an introduction to the timeless debate of silk versus chiffon.

Varric doesn't know what to do with that information, but the intention is clear, and the smile she gets is genuine, if nothing else. “Sounds like a catch,” he drawls.

“Indeed.”

The song picks up, the dancers on the floor switch places with a swift, practised turn and amidst the twirl of fabric he catches her smile – a brief, almost startled thing, but not false; he knows her well enough to distinguish that much. 

His drink sits heavy in his hand, and his thoughts heavier still.

“Oh, what lovely shoes!” Nightingale says then, voice cutting through the din and past his distraction. “Are those gemstones? On slippers?” She offers him a scandalous look. “I believe this requires closer inspection.”

But before she leaves she lingers by his shoulder, and when she speaks her words are softly spoken so that only he'll hear. “If I know her, she'll want some air later. One of the balconies – the gardens are too crowded. An explanation might not be amiss.” A last, knowing smile, then, “Have you heard the expression 'grabbing a bull by the horns'? She fumbles when overwhelmed – be steadfast, and she will respond accordingly.”

Then she is gone, words of wisdom swallowed by the crowd, and Varric is once again left alone. The song ends almost without his notice, but when he turns his gaze back to the floor she's gone, and Flaunty is heading back towards him with a wide smile.

“ _Vigorous_  activities require refreshments,” he declares with a grin, and Varric wants to toss him over the table, but his ire goes unnoticed as Flaunty makes for the wine. But when he turns back he stops, his cheer replaced by confusion. “Well that's strange. I wonder where she's gone off to,” he says, two full glasses in his hands.

“I'd suggest trying the gardens,” Varric says then, in a friendly tone. “She probably went to get some air. Vigorous activities and all that.”

Flaunty doesn't seem to suspect deception, and grins. “Good call. A secluded spot might just do the trick – she's not one for the public, would you believe it with her reputation?” He laughs.

Oh Varric would, but he's not about to tell him that, and simply watches as he makes his way towards the staircase. “Idiot.”

Then he downs his drink, and goes looking for his elusive Seeker.

As per the Nightingale's suggestion, he finds her on one of the balconies, skulking in the shadows. Hearing his approach, she's quick to turn, but her face betrays her composure and she looks – surprised.

“Not who you were expecting?”

She sighs, her shoulders losing some of their tension. “I'm glad it's not who I was expecting,” she admits, and now Varric is the one who finds himself surprised.

It must show on his face, because her brow furrows with familiar suspicion. “What?” she asks sharply, and Varric is at a loss.

Her expression softens, then. “He is –  _was_  – an old friend of my brother,” she says at length. “He...was always kind to me, when I was younger, but I mistook his kindness for just that. It turns out I was wrong. I...suspect he would have courted me, if I had not joined the Seekers.”

Her words leave a sour taste in his mouth, but he tries to ignore it. “You don't have to explain yourself, you know. You're allowed to dance with whoever you want,” he says, as he joins her by the balustrade. The gardens below are dark and dimly lit, full of couples in various states of intimacy – and Flaunty somewhere, probably, with two glasses of wine and himself for company. Varric draws some enjoyment from the thought. 

Cassandra scoffs, turns – her skirt flares, like her temper. “I am not some weak-kneed girl on her first ball, Varric. I've made my choice. I–” she stops, and swallows. Raises her chin. “I already told you.”

And he smiles then, for his own foolishness, and for her, stubborn and angry even now. “You did," he says, and the knowledge smooths the sharp edges of his earlier thoughts. "I'm sorry.”

Her lips purse, and he thinks it might be with a smile. “Honesty? Well, now.”

He grins – he can't help himself. “What can I say? You do strange things to me, Princess. Next you know, I'll be the one asking you to dance.”

He doesn't know if he's being serious or not, but she laughs – a short, bark of laughter anyway, but it's the most genuine sound of mirth he's ever heard from her. “Don't joke,” she warns, and he's tempted to tell her it's not, but he doesn't. It's too early for that yet, and he marvels at how easy it's become to predict how she'll react.

Instead he chooses a safer path. “So, didn't know you  _could_  dance,” he says after a lull. It's conversational more than anything else, because he's seen her fight – seen her duck, parry and leap carrying a sword and shield with more grace than he's seen actual dancers display barehanded.

Her face contorts to a grimace. “I don't dance, but that does not mean I don't know  _how_. I learned the steps. Where I grew up, it was customary.”

“Well consider me impressed,” he says, and it's the truth, for all that she was dancing with a pretentious fop. “Maybe the Inquisition should start throwing its own balls.”

She doesn't quite smile, but her expression softens a fraction as she turns back towards the balustrade, and they stand in companionable silence. The temperature is warm in this part of Orlais, and she seems more comfortable in her ensemble now than she'd been inside, at the centre of the attention of many. Now it's only him, and Varric stores the thought away with a smile. 

“I–” she starts then. Hesitates. “I have not thanked you.”

If his confusion shows on his face, it's because it's genuine. “Thanked me? For what?”

Her hands are restless by her sides, and she won't quite meet his eyes, but he lets her take her time – she chooses her words with more care than he does, for all that he's supposed to be the articulate one, and he's not so impatient he'll deprive her of that comfort. “For – not pushing,” she says then. “Tonight I realized –  _remembered_  – that not all suitors are quite so accommodating. But you – you have been very patient with me, and...I just wanted to thank you for that. It has not gone unnoticed.”

He thinks about Flaunty – the offered hand and the casual usage of her name; the drinks and the predatory light in his eyes as Varric had directed him towards the gardens, and feels – well, anger is part of it. The sudden urge to locate his crossbow is another. 

His expression has turned serious, despite his efforts to keep his smile. “You shouldn't have to thank me for a common courtesy, Seeker,” he tells her. The title falls easily between them, and – he wonders if she'll let him call her 'Cass' one day. Maybe not, or – maybe. He likes the prospect.

She shakes her head, and there's a ghost of a smile at the corner of her mouth. “Even so, I would still like to. You do not have to put up with me, but you do. I still don't know  _why_ ,” she adds. Glares a little. “But I am...glad of it.”

Varric grins. “Now there's a saying that goes both ways,” he tells her, and it's sincere. He's still surprised she responded to his advancements at all, and that she hasn't chucked him over the balcony yet.

He draws a breath. “Listen. I know I haven't always been...honest, when it's come to you–” She snorts, but he's not deterred, “But you should know I'm not going anywhere. Unless you want me to, that is.”

They've moved closer – the balcony is empty, but there are guests in the gardens below and behind the ornate windows; slivers of music and laughter drift out into the balmy air, but the quiet is a gentle, almost secret thing. There are many illicit embraces taking place around them, Varric doesn't doubt that, but theirs is something else – innocuous, and yet not. It's too significant for petty labels.

“I would not,” she says, and shifts her stance ever so slightly. The hem of her dress touches the toe of his boot, and when she breathes next there's a slight hitch, and expectation thrums in rhythm with the muted music of the band.

It's not a kiss – it's too soon for that, he knows, like he knows that's she'll only ever have two glasses of wine at once and no more, for fear of loosening her tongue too much – but it's close. Her hand nudges against his, gloved fingers hesitant in her affection, and it's too public, too out in the open, but –

Her fingers curl around his then, an almost tender gesture for a woman who's known for her brute force. It's the same hand that's aimed a punch at his face – that's fisted in his tunic in an attempt to throw him down a staircase, and that's threatened to strangle him on more than one occasion, but now her loose fingers curve into his palm gently, tentatively. It's a far cry from book euphemisms and stolen glances across the Main Hall – hells, for them it's something of a leap.

And she's – stunning, the moonlight in her dark eyes and her shoulders loose now with a trust he almost doesn't understand, and Varric doesn't ask for more.

“Want to go back inside?” he asks instead.

She smiles, and he stores the small victory for safekeeping. “I'd rather eat my own shoe.”

The laugh comes easily, and feels lighter than it has in weeks. “Don't let Nightingale hear you say that,” he says. Then, “Mind if I keep you company?”

She shakes her head. “I would like that,” she says, and there's a confidence there now that wasn't there the last time he asked of her companionship. And they're not speaking in codes now, and Varric considers it another victory.

The world moves on around them, a tumult of colour and sound and secrets, but in their little spot there's a quiet solitude that resonates in the relaxed line of her shoulders, and the pleased crinkles at the corners of her eyes.

But most of all, in her fumbling warrior's fingers caught so gently in his.


	3. your story, loud on your skin

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Because I can't with good conscience write a convincing romance with these two and keep ignoring The Bianca Talk.

_I'm not calling you a liar, just don't lie to me.  
_ _I'm not calling you a thief, just don't steal from me._

 _I'm not calling you a ghost, just stop haunting me.  
_ _And I love you so much, I'm gonna let you_

_kill me._

(Florence + the Machine, 'I'm Not Calling You A Liar')

.

For all their unhurried and hesitant progression, the cares they've taken not to rush, and to cover eventual obstacles ( _plot holes, he calls them, and it makes her smile_ ), they are no safer from common misconceptions than anyone else.

.

The words are out of her mouth one day, lost before she's had a chance to think them over, much less stop herself from speaking them–

“Do you still love her?”

It's a quiet afternoon in the corner of Skyhold he's claimed as his own, the fire burning low in the hearth to ward off the cold creeping through the stone. She's commandeered his chair to read in, as has become a habit – her own quarters seem too empty now, too lonely for a slowly thawing soul that craves new warmth, though she'll never admit it to his face.

He's cleaning his crossbow, with the same care she's always seen him maintain, as though he's not handling a weapon but a person, but only now does the implication truly strike her – the full weight of it like a barrage, and she can't breathe, can't think; her entire mind reels to a sudden, staggering halt. 

The question stills his fingers, but he doesn't look at her. Instead he's looking at the crossbow –  _the_   _crossbow, merciful Andraste but she won't call it by its name, by_ _her_ _name, she won't_ – and the pause that follows contains her worst fears and she's not in the Fade but there's a voice taunting her, whispering at the edge of her hearing words she already knows, deep in her heart.

“I see,” she says, and her voice won't break, Maker take her but it won't, she is stronger than this, she always has been, and why should things be different now, just because she's added her heart to the betting pool?

But this isn't Wicked Grace, and there is no warm and knowing laughter when she folds. Instead it's his voice, rough and sudden in the wake of her acknowledgement, “Cassandra–”

But she is already moving, her feet stronger than her traitorous heart, sturdier than her fumbling words, and they carry her towards the door with an urgency that betrays her carefully contained composure. She can't even look at him, because he hasn't answered her question – instead he avoids it ( _like she's the interrogator again and all he serves are lies, lies, lies_ ), and that fact alone is so much worse than any alternative.

“Cassandra!” He reaches for her hand as she passes, but she pulls away – a parry to his advance, and the first since their situation changed. The shock of it settles on his face, and in another time, another place _(with high walls and gallows beckoning the lost)_  she'd have been thrilled to see him so thrown, but here and now all she feels is grief, cold and hard and familiar.

“Don't, _”_  she says, but the word is nothing like she'd intended – it's not sharp, not scathing or damning. Instead her voice ( _and curse her voice, curse her heart)_ breaks.

She does not look back as she leaves, and he does not stop her. In  _Swords & Shields_ she would have let him grab her hand; let him explain that the past doesn't matter, and she'd believe him. But this isn't a novel, it's never been because novels are never so cruel as this, and even the Knight-Captain's late husband had not clung with such persistence that she could not move on with her life. Cassandra had thought it would be different, but her ghost is his ghost, a living ghost, and it clings not just to the weapon he holds so dear, but to his heart perhaps even stronger.

And Cassandra can do without many things, can put up with much before the burden grows too great, but she cannot ( _will not, never_ ) settle for half of a heart. 

.

.

.

The door slams behind her, and the silence that settles howls a foreign song in his ears. But it's not entirely strange, because – it's the Hanged Man's deathly quiet without Hawke, and the eerie calm of Bartrand's betrayal. And now it's here, haunting him still halfway across the world, but it's worse, in this fortress far removed from everyone he knows because it's the silence of her dismissal and she's–

everything.

Bianca is propped by the desk, hinges cleaned and wood handle polished bright, but he can't look at her. Instead his eyes are on the empty chair by the fire – the void left by her presence a terrible, yawning thing that swallows the air in the room. One of her many copies of  _Swords & Shields_ lies forgotten on the chair, but he knows she'd never truly forget it and the fact that she's purposely left it behind stings worse than if she'd socked him on her way out. By the worn-but-cared-for state of the copy he knows which chapter, can probably even pinpoint the exact passage she'd been reading, and Varric knows – just as he knows her favourite part of that particular passage down to the sentence – that if he doesn't fix this, she's gone.

“Shit,” he says, for he's patient, but skittish as she is in matters of the heart she'd made her bet, and he's the fool who spent too long considering his cards.

But if he's a fool he's not a fool who folds without good reason, and so he shoulders his mistake, tucks the book into his tunic, and makes to follow.

She's not in the courtyard, and by the state of the practice dummies she hasn't passed through on her way, meaning she's kept away from the prying eyes of Skyhold proper. And so he picks a path along the battlements until he comes upon the secluded part in which she's taken up residence, longing for a solitude Varric can't understand, he who favours the noise and tumult of living things.

He sees the shiver in the air by the rickety staircase – repairs have not been prioritized here, yet – but he doesn't flinch. You don't spent years in the worst parts of Kirkwall's slums and jump at shadows.

“Hey, kid,” he greets, and a familiar hat pokes out into the dim light.

“Bitter burning, biting,” is his answer, a quiet, curious murmur, and a frown sits heavy on his brow beneath the wide brim. “Fury first, then sorrow. Embarrassment? I don't know, why don't I know? Maker take him, but the folly is mine.”

Varric sighs. “She's three different kinds of pissed, I take it?”

But the kid frowns. “Hands trembling, want to throw something –  _someone._ Anything. Andraste preserve my foolish heart, I'll choke him with his own prose. Foolish, foolish, anger and – grief, it festers slowly, not like Anthony. Different, like–”

“Yeah, I'll keep that in mind,” Varric says, cutting him off before there's no stopping him, or before he hears something he's not supposed to, and leaves him by the stairs as he makes for her rooms, climbing the steps with deliberate care so she'll hear him coming.

Anger is good – he can deal with anger, and hers more than anyone else’s. It's the other shit he's unequipped for.

He doesn't bother knocking, because she's stubborn enough to choose not to answer, but he opens the door slowly. And when nothing comes flying at his head, he moves all the way inside.

She's sitting by the lone table, long legs pulled up in a casual arrangement she doesn't often let even him see, but she doesn't move as he enters, and there's a weary weight at the corners of her stern mouth that speaks of tiredness more than it does of anger.

“You left your book,” he says, and holds it out – it's not a peace offering, because he's not there to offer peace; that's her own choice, not his. But it's not an apology, either, because he's not so selfish he'd try to lure his way out of the conversation he knows needs to happen. It's weeks overdue, he knows that, too, just like he knows she deserved more than that from him.

But whatever it's meant as, she accepts it, slender fingers curling around the spine with a care she shows for very few things save her faith and his words, and a derisive laugh lurks at the bottom of his throat, because for all her esteem he'd given her  _silence_.

“I – was angry,” she says then, to Varric's surprise, and she drops her gaze to the book. “I apologize. I do not know what came over me.”

He doesn't smile, because for all that he'd wanted it once, there's nothing gratifying about her apology now – hells, the fact that she's apologizing is the least amusing thing he can imagine. Because he's never known her to apologize for her anger, righteous or misplaced as it's been with regards to him in particular, and just the simple fact that she is screams volumes about just how much she's gambled on their little venture.

And it's in the knowledge of everything that she does and does not do, everything that she thinks and believes, hells, everything that she _is,_ that he knows what he's about to say is, for once, the honest truth.

“I loved her,” he says then, with more calm than he feels. The words feels sharp and raw in his throat, like he's tried to swallow rocks. “I did for a long time.”

She does not drop her gaze from his, as though intent to stare him down even if he's come for the sole purpose of breaking her heart. He's not, but he can tell she doesn't know that, and just the thought makes him want to grab her shoulders and shake her.

“You don't have to explain–”

“The hell I don't,” he snaps, and he sees the surprise on her face, the briefest flicker before her guard falls back down, unreadable as an Orlesian mask. “Now will you let me?”

It's a challenge – oh, and he sees the spark of temper in her eyes now and loves her for it (the stray thought appears between one breath and the next, ringing loud with staggering truth, and – he doesn't deny it, at least not to himself.) But he doesn't tell her – not yet, anyhow. It's too soon, and there's another thing they need to cover first, a topic he should have broached a long time ago.

He doesn't take a seat – he's usually the one sitting, even when he's doing the talking, but these are her rooms and he won't deprive her of her comforts by making more space for himself than she'll give him. Instead he remains standing, and – he talks. About Kirkwall, and the Silence. About Bianca, and how some ghosts linger past their due, and how he's allowed it more space in his life than it deserves – than she deserves, now that she's part of it. 

There are other things he wants to say, but the wary way she watches him tells him they are words for another day (he wants to tell her about the way she chews on her lip when she reads, and how she danced at Halamshiral – the way she moves when she walks, saunters, prowls across the courtyard. The quiet of her mind when she reads in his chair, long legs pulled up like a girl much younger, and the peace she grants him, even in the silence he hates).

When he's done, she only looks at him, long and hard, but she doesn't leave. Even when he moves to cover the distance with heavy steps, she remains in her seat, and when he reaches for her face, fingers steady against the sharp curve of her jaw, the scar on her cheek and the jut of her chin – she lets him. Anyone else would have called it a small gesture, but Varric knows better. He almost imagines she leans into his hand, but the movement is so small, so brief he can't be sure.

He tries a smile – fails. “Come on, Seeker. No ghosts of your own?” he asks, and even the question doesn't sound as light-hearted as he'd intended it.

She doesn't respond immediately, but then – “One,” she says, the lone word like a hundred, a thousand. “But it is not the same. He has not been mine for years – perhaps he never truly was. And...he would not have been mine, even if events had not unfolded the way they did.”

“What happened?” Varric asks, though he's not entirely sure he wants to know.

“The Conclave,” she says simply, and – he regrets asking. But the sorrow in her eyes is old, and  _she's managed this_ , he thinks – to move on, while he's been chasing his elusive spectre though she's no more tangible to his hands than this dead lover is to hers.

“I did not lose my heart,” Cassandra says, “because I had not given it. Not fully, anyhow. My feelings at the time were sincere, but–” She stops. And she meets his eyes, then. “But  _this_ – if you–” Her lips press down, anger and regret in the lines of her mouth. “I will not be so lucky,” she says at last, and she might as well have struck him for the force the quiet admission carries.

“If you cannot let go,” she continues. “If I have to endure her ghost, I don't – I  _won't_ –”

He acts before he thinks – impulsive now, when he's so long made a point of being careful. But he's always relied on his silver tongue to get him out of fixes – to charm smiles from his enemies and the coins from the pockets of unsuspecting nobles – but for all her love of them, for once his words will mend nothing. And so Varric takes a page out of his own book ( _literally_ , and the irony is not lost, not in the least), and – 

and it's nothing like the ones he writes about – it's not rough and wrought with unbearable passion, a hasty, easily forgotten gesture amidst pages full of the shit. Instead it's deliberate, unhurried, but urgent with a need to convey more than just simple  _affection._  But it's also the tilt of her head and the surprised widening of her eyes (the soft intake of breath that undoes him). It's his hand around her stubborn chin and it's a beat, a moment; time standing still with no interruptions, no audience, but there's a story he wants to tell her, and when he leans in to capture her mouth it's with more honesty than he's ever put into words.

And – she's rigid steel with brittle force even here, sharp in her movements, but one heartbeat and she gives way just a little – not reluctantly, but with a care that still speaks of her wary and hard-won trust. And she's blunt, he finds without surprise, but also with a fondness that cuts deeper than her silence has. There is little softness about her but in the curve of her mouth and her skin beneath his sure fingers; the rest of her is unrelenting strength, but it's the subtle lift of her chin, her nose against his, that finally chases the ghosts from his mind.

She doesn't open her eyes with the press of his brow to hers, and the quiet settles, wraps around them in the space they've created, and – Varric waits for judgement.

“I don't share,” she says then, but with less vitriol than he knows her capable of. “I won't vie for the heart of someone who is already claimed. It is not who I am, and I will be no less than that.”

He can't help the smile. “And I wouldn't have you any other way, Princess. Question is if you'll have me.”

Her looks softens a fraction, “Are you mine to have, then?”

And he doesn't waver now – “Without doubt – well, without my doubt, anyhow. Yours I'm still waiting to hear back from,” he says, and tries for levity. He pauses. “About Bianca – the crossbow–”

“I am not  _unreasonable,_  Varric,” she cuts him off sharply, and he's reminded, suddenly, of a ruffled cat. “I know how much sh– _it_  means to you, and I would never ask you to give it up. I just...needed to know if I'm, if there is a chance I will ever be–”

“Cassandra,” he says then, and she looks up, brows furrowed, and Varric can't believe that  _this is what she's been thinking._ “Tell me you know you mean more to me than Bianca, because if you don't, I'm sorry, but you just might be the most thick-headed woman I've ever met. And that includes  _Hawke.”_

She opens her mouth. Closes it. And – “Oh,” she says, and Varric doesn't know whether to tear at his hair or laugh because Maker help him but she sounds  _surprised._

He presses his thumb to the corner of her mouth, and when he smiles next he allows himself to mean it. “It's only you, Princess,” he says – honestly, because he won't be a liar with her, not anymore, and this story is not one he'll exaggerate.

Then he grins, and her breath hitches – just a little, but it's enough for him to know there is no doubt in her mind as he adds, “I don't see how there could be anyone else.”

The book lies on the table now, well and truly forgotten in the peace that settles as he joins her. In his novels this would be where things turned sordid, but they're not that simple – and not nearly so crass.

But then, her fingers not yet touching his but almost – “Tell me about her?” she says –  _asks_ , and it's not for his sake but her own, he knows. And it's not jealousy that drives her curiosity, but a need to understand.

And it's not for his sake but for hers that Varric tells the story. Because he owes her that much and more. Because to move on, and to tell her the stories he wants to (the poem of the curve of her shoulders when she spars, the epic of the dragon's blood in her veins that fuels the passion she's loath to admit she even has), 

he needs to write the concluding chapter on his own past.


	4. your rare and honest soul

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Goodness you're all so lovely -- your responses to this have made me speechless, I'm sitting here with a huge grin on my face. So have another chapter, because I'm on a roll and not likely to stop any time soon.

There's a saying or something that you should never leave anything important unspoken.

And shit, but if that isn't the truth.

.

The snow makes it hard to see, swirling a thick flurry before her face, and the wind is a howl at her ears through the hood that offers less comfort now than it had promised when they'd set out from Sahrnia. The weather had been good then – a cold sun on a cloud-speckled sky risen to see them off, but it had not taken long for those same skies to turn grey, and for the snow to begin falling in earnest.

They've just agreed to turn back to camp, when the worst happens.

The dragon appears out of nowhere – through the white and the wind they haven't heard its approach, and the ground breaks and heaves from its sudden descent. Cracks shoot through the thick ice underfoot like veins, and – she loses her footing, finds open air when she steps back, and a surprised noise tears from her throat–

She thinks she might have heard her name, and there's a hand reaching for her, palm open wide –  _where is his crossbow?_ she thinks suddenly through the startled haze– but then the ground itself gives away and there's a surge in her stomach as she plummets. The white envelops her senses before the pain, swallows her up and drags her down in a tumult of noise and motion, and she's unconscious before she hits the bottom, 

hands grasping at nothing and thinking  _did he make it, did he make it,_ _ **did he make it.**_

.

.

.

It's dark when she wakes, disoriented like she's never been. There's a weight on her chest, like something heavy is sitting on her ribcage, and when she tries to roll over on her side every limb hurts, and the groan lodges in the base of her parched throat.

It's cold, sweet Andraste it's freezing, and the snow has soaked into her breeches, through her under-armour, and she can't tell if she's bleeding or not, and for a terrifying moment she wonders if she's dead.

But this is not the Maker's realm, and the pain is real enough – the squeeze of her ribs that tells her something is either badly sprained or broken, and the pounding headache that carries the promise of a concussion, or worse. She can barely see for the dark – nothing more than grey and the odd swell of rocks and ice. But she fell, she remembers, and when she looks up her eyes search for the sky but find nothing.

Her head is pounding, and she touches a hand to the back of it, finding a lump the size of her fist, and an oath falls from her lips. There's a potion somewhere on her person – in some pocket, but she can't remember which, and there's something else she's supposed to remember, too, but–

– _a hand reaching for hers, her name on his tongue and the ground disappearing beneath them._

She scrambles to her feet so fast she falls back down, driving her knee into the ice, but the pain is a fickle, unimportant thing as she scans the surrounding scenery, looking for a flash of red, of gold –  _anything –_ and her gaze lands on a shape some few paces off, barely visible through the dark.

“No,” she croaks, and it's her voice and it's not, and her whole body protests as she scrambles through the snow to reach him. She doesn't know where her sword is, but the thought of it is forgotten as frost-bitten fingers reach to brush the snow from his back.

He's on his stomach, his face turned away, and she can't tell if he's breathing or not, and the Maker's name is on her thoughts, on her tongue until she doesn't know if she's speaking her native language or something else because he's as still as she's ever seen him, and the fear that creeps along her limbs is colder than the snow.

“Varric,” she says – demands, but he doesn't twitch, and something like bile rises in her throat, but she shoves it back down. “ _Varric_.”

He doesn't respond to her voice, and – she wants to curse her Maker now, she finds the thought a heavy, foreign thing but not unjust – not here, with his lifeless form and  _he, who'd only been reaching for her._

Then – a groan. A low, painful rumble from his chest, and “Andraste's  _tits._ ”, but she forgives the blasphemy as she'd forgive anything in this moment, and when he moves she has to swallow the lump in her throat before the sound of it makes it past her lips, because she will not falter here.

Her fingers ache with the cold, but she grips his tunic, helps him turn over with gentler hands than she knows how to use, and when he lays back his eyes search the dark for hers. And even in the dim light of the snow she sees there are things he wants to say, but she can't bear to hear them – the fear grips her, throttles her because it smacks of finality, the on-your-deathbed sort (and she won't have that from him, she won't, not here, not ever).

“Anything broken?” she asks then, voice almost too loud in the dark quiet, and tries to pretend it does not break. She tries to tell herself her hands are trembling from the cold and not something else, something she won't acknowledge yet, as they skim along his legs, his arms and his ribs, searching for answers even before he gives it.

Varric breathes, and his face contorts with pain. “Don't...think so. Or – maybe. Hells, I don't know.” He looks at her then. “You?” he asks, and he doesn't bother to try and hide the concern, and something twists behind her ribs that's not an injury.

“I will be fine,” she says, dismissively because she's had worse, oh much worse than this, but he hasn't tried to get up yet and the fact festers at the bottom of her stomach like a wound in its own right.

He snorts, and another oath follows. “Glad to hear it,” he says. “Had me worried when you went tumbling over the edge.”

She thinks of his hand – her name on his tongue – and swallows. “I was not the only one,” she says then, but she does not look at the cliff crawling upwards through the dark behind them.

He laughs, or – tries to. “Poor rescue attempt on my part – I'll have to gloss over that when I tell the story later.” He smiles, but it looks forced even to her eyes, for she knows his smiles now – the false ones, and the true. “Well, at least you've got me to keep you company down here,” he says, before his expression sobers. “The others?”

She shakes her head. “Only us, as I can see. They must still be above.” With the dragon, or without it, but she won't allow her mind to linger on that.

“Finally got some privacy, then. Not what I would have preferred, mind you, but I'm all for making the best of the situation.” The corner of his mouth lifts. “What do you say, Seeker? Want to huddle together for warmth?”

He's trying to make light of it, but it doesn't settle her heart – on the contrary, it only makes it worse because his smile is strained and his breathing laboured. If he hasn't broken his back or his ribs, he's got more than the Maker's luck on his side, but she can read his own fear on his face, though he tries to hide it.

She looks towards the cliff – tries to see past the dark, with a vague hope of finding something that might work as cover, if only for a few hours. And – she strains her eyes, but there it is, part of the cliff-side jutting out to form an oddly shaped crag. It is nowhere near ideal, but there is little else but snow and ice and she still doesn't know how far she can move him – if she should be moving him at all.

Her fingers throb as she roots through her pockets for the potion, fumbling awkwardly with the straps of her armour, before she curves her hand under the back of his neck. “Here,” she says, as she holds out the cold flask.

He looks like he might protest, and anger wells within her with something that almost burns, but it's a cold fire. “Don't be foolish!” she snaps. “You are more injured than I, and I can still move. We need to get under cover, now will you take it or do I have to drag you?”

It's no joke, and he doesn't laugh, but accepts the potion reluctantly, and she helps him drink it. It's not strong enough for any long lasting effects, but it might give him the boost he needs to get up off the ground.

Moving is a slow process. Cassandra helps him stand, and the potion has the desired effect, allowing him to walk the distance back to the cliff on his own feet, but when they reach the slab of rock he's not taken many paces before he collapses against the cliff wall.

“Wait here,” she says, and finds she expects him to say something like 'Not going anywhere, Princess – literally', but he doesn't, and it drives the worry only further into her marrow, until she can't distinguish between her physical pains and her own thoughts.  

There's not much to be found in their immediate area, but she locates as many pine-branches as she can. They're thin, scraggly things sparsely covered with needles, but with little but the clothes on their backs they've got nothing else to use.

By the time she returns, Varric is no longer conscious, but she smothers the panic before it has a chance to settle. It's the potion, she tells herself – it's allowing his body to relax. It's a common side-effect, and she won't let her fear dissuade her from listening to her own common sense (even if it feels less like sense and more like wishful thinking, here in the dark and the silence that reigns without his voice to keep her company).

He's cold –  _oh he's cold, he's never been this cold, and isn't she supposed to be the cold one?_ – and she tucks herself against his side with none of the hesitance she would have shown, had he been awake. It's not like she'd imagined it would be (of course it's not, because there's no smile for her now, no laughter beneath her ear, or arms wrapping around her back, large palms warm against her hips). And it's all she can give, this meagre warmth, but she gives him all of it – and she'd have given more still if he'd asked.

His brow is relaxed with exhausted sleep, and it looks – wrong, on a face that carries either mirth, or is heavy with thoughts he does not always speak. She knows some of them now, and he shares his burdens easily where he'd once laughed them off. And she's allowed him closer, too – every day a little bit more, hesitant touches in passing, her hand in his in Halamshiral, but never as close as they are now, and the thought sits like a dark thing in her mind.

She thinks about the kiss – the kiss that has not been repeated since that day (that terrible day with her anger and her sorrow at war and his regret so potent a thing, and his story, long overdue but delivered because she'd asked). And he's made no advances since, as though to say the choice is hers, and perhaps it is, but though affection is not a foreign feeling in her heart, she has never been good at showing it. Not like him, his sure grip around her chin and fondness in his every breath.

She thinks then, about the chance that he might not wake – that morning will come, and he'll be quieter still, the kind of quiet there is no waking from, and – and her own regret creeps like frost along her limbs, with the knowledge that there are yet so many things not said between them, so many things not done.

“I–” she says to the silence, but hesitates even here. But he doesn’t wake, and it's in the press of her brow against his temple that she draws her courage – “I might...love you, you fool dwarf. And if you leave me now I will  _never_  forgive you.”

He still doesn't respond, and it takes her a moment to realize that for all her embarrassment, for all her uncertainty and her bedamned  _pride_ , she'd have repeated her words a hundred times if it had meant he'd wake to remind her that he'll never let her live it down.

But he doesn't, and she spends the night with the cold and the dark for company, ear pressed to his chest, and she clings with foreign desperation to the sound of his heart drumming a weak tune against her temple. And she turns her mind to Andraste, murmuring her prayers to the silence to keep the fear at bay, though it claws with persistent hands on her weary bones. 

And she asks (does not demand this time, though she feels more than desperate enough) for the Maker's mercy, so that when she wakes, it will not be to silence below her ear.

.

.

.

The following morning greets her with a soft grey dawnlight, but the sun does not break through the cover of clouds and as the hours crawl by on slow feet, the snow begins to thicken. And Varric –

Varric does not wake.

She has a choice to make on behalf of them both, and she makes it when the snowfall lessens, and a sliver of blue hope cuts through the grey overhead. He is heavy – that much does not come as a surprise, and she chucks her armour to better manage the weight. And it's cold,  _Maker's mercy it's so cold_ , cutting to her core even now with the sun breaking hesitantly through the clouds, but she locks her jaw and ignores it as she draws him across her back.

Her legs ache, and her back, arms straining to hold him, but the Maker has given her good weather and Cassandra has never been one to turn her back on small blessings. And – he needs medical attention, and sooner rather than later.

There's no climbing back up – she doesn't even need to look up the cliff-side to know that much, and so she moves forward, hoping –  _praying –_  that she will either happen upon one of the outer camps, or somewhere populated. The Emprise is vast with its sharp hills and jagged ridges, but she will walk until her strength leaves her, and then –

She does not wish to think about what happens, then.

She has to take breaks; the uneven terrain gives her trouble, and he's difficult to carry. “You are  _heavy_ ,” she tells him, hands shaking where she grips his shoulders, as she tries to prop him up by a rock. “And when we get out of these cursed highlands, I will never let you forget it.” This is a story Cassandra will tell herself, if –  _when, she needs to remember that because if not why else is she fighting?_  – they get back.

A noise draws her attention, then – the sound of something moving across the snow, and when she looks up she spots a shadow between the evergreen branches that makes her blood run cold, because she doesn't have her sword (or his crossbow, she remembers suddenly, and finds in her heart a sudden, startling shame, because she had not thought to look for it). And for all of Bull's jokes, Cassandra doesn't believe she can take down a beast that size barehanded.

But the bear doesn't attack, only prowls across the white ground, cutting a wide circle around them, as if indecisive about their fate. And there's a disbelieving hopelessness pushing its way up her throat, because she has not made it this far only to find herself at the mercy of a  _bear._

But then – it turns, the great, grey back vanishing between the trees, and her relief is a wild surge in her breast. Varric still doesn't move, but the press of stiff fingers against his chest settles her worry that his continued silence is one of finality.

“You would no doubt write that it did attack,” she says, to the air. “And that I fought it off with a tree-branch.” The thought ought to have made her smile, but she cannot find her joy in the cold place that's become a single-minded drive of survival, and so when she laughs it's a hollow sound.

Lingering is evidently out of the question, and so she gathers whatever remains of her strength, and shoves her own pains to the back of her mind as she makes to start off again.

It's a long trek, and it's a new hurt with every step taken. And it's only when she spots the rising smoke of chimney-fires that she allows herself to feel just how tired she truly is, but still she continues until the village comes into view – the glare of the sun slanting off the iron bars of the balconies that look almost cheerfully out-of-place amidst the ice and snow.

Finally, she can't take another step. Her knees hit the ice, and he tumbles from her back, but her vision is swimming and Maker but she's so  _tired._ But there are voices, now – shouts in the distance, the sound rising above the blood thundering in her ears.

She reaches for Varric – tries to grab his tunic but her hands won't obey her, they're too cold, her bones brittle with her own exhaustion, and  _she needs to tell him_ –

“Rest, now,” she says, but she doesn't know if she's speaking to him, or to herself. But it doesn't matter, because there's help coming, and it's more than her only potion. More than her meagre warmth.

A shadow falls over her then, and she can barely move her head, but there's really no mistaking that size and stature as anything but Qunari.

“You're a vision, Seeker.” Bull grins down at her, horns blocking out the sun, but Cassandra cannot muster a smile.

“Varric,” she rasps instead, too exhausted to convey all she wants to say (only had the one potion, there might be fractures, a concussion, I did what I could but he has not woken and I fear he never will and  _I only had the one potion_ )–

before she promptly passes out.

.

.

.

When he wakes it's in his own bed, and a moment of complete and utter confusion follows. There should be snow and ice and a cutting cold, but instead there's a fire in the hearth; only the soft crackle of the flames and no howl of the wind. Another moment passes, and Varric wonders if his mind has made it all up, but – he shifts, and his back responds like he's been thrown under a horse-cart, and he can't breathe without feeling it, even with the mattress soft and warm beneath him.

 _Shit_ , but everything hurts – his vision blurs with it, and his mind feels heavy with the familiar afterthoughts of potent healing magic. In his momentary disorientation, he half-expects Blondie to appear, a lecture about listening to Hawke's half-brained ideas on his tongue to mask the worry he doesn't want to admit.

A hand on his own breaks the spell, and Kirkwall disappears as slender fingers curve around the backs of his with more force than he's ever known another person to use, and when he opens his eyes fully her face swims before his vision. 

“Not the worst way to wake up,” he hears himself say, but it's the relief that spills across her features that makes him smile in earnest. Her brow relaxes, and the tension bleeds out of her shoulders with a vivid honesty she does not show often. And she's – beautiful doesn't quite seem to cut it, though his eyes linger on the healing row of stitches above her brow, the bandage peeking out of her loose shirt and her left arm in a sling. He tries to remember what happened, but his memory falls short.

“Kept you waiting long?” he asks then. There are no windows in this part of the Keep and so he can't tell if it's the middle of the day or too late for any reasonable soul to be up.

“As always,” she says, voice thicker than he's heard it, accent just a little bit deeper (the way it gets when she's worried, but she'd never admit that, oh no), and she looks like she doesn't know whether to be glad or absolutely furious.

He remembers, then – vague snippets of white and the cold, of waking to find his vision obscured by her hair, and the shell of her ear pressed against his heart. And he wonders if he might have made that up, too, but something about the look on her face tells him he hasn't, though his imagination is certainly liable.

Something draws his eyes from behind her, and to his surprise he finds Bianca propped by the desk, and his confusion must show –  _because he remembers her falling and of dropping it, but it was too late, too late for his free hands to catch her –_ and when he looks at her next Cassandra has her gaze turned away.

“Bull found it,” she says, and Varric finds a smile.

“Remind me to thank him.”

She nods, and the lines at the corners of her mouth tighten just a fraction.

“Happier to see  _you_ , to be honest,” he says then, voice rough, and – he is. It's not a half-truth, or even something close. Fresh in his mind is the memory of the ground giving out beneath her feet, and the fear like hands at his throat, and a desperation that prompted a reaction before he'd had a chance to think it over,  _and he always thinks things over._

Her surprise is a flicker in her eyes – the slight rise of her brows, and he can tell she hadn't expected that, despite of what he's already told her, and suddenly he's glad he's alive not for his own sake, but because if he'd died and left her uncertain about her own importance, well – death certainly would have been a fitting penance.

He's about to tell her – the thing that's lurked beneath his skin for weeks now, but that he's kept to himself, because for all her love of literary romance she's so easily spooked by the real thing. And Maker's lack of beard, but he's not about to risk falling down another bloody ravine and have her not knowing.

But he doesn't have a chance to speak, because she seems to have had a similar thought, though it doesn't involve talking.

She hesitates only for a moment, and Varric doesn't bother hiding his surprise when she leans in, the bandaged fingers of her free hand curling in the fabric of his shirt with more care than she usually shows, but there's nothing at all hesitant about the press of her mouth against his. Instead it's an insistence that conveys words she will not speak yet (and not for a while, but it doesn't matter because he  _knows_ , there's no doubt in his mind and he doesn't need verbal verification of something she tells him now with her rare smile against his).

And she's warm where the cold still clings, a sure and solid thing though he's too tired to so much as lift his arms, and he wants to – Maker take him but he wants to draw her closer, run his hands down the curve of her back, but that's for another time, when he's not injured beyond belief and she's comfortable enough to allow him to reciprocate.

When she draws back it's too soon (but it's also sooner than he'd expected and the thought sits like a small warmth below his heart), it's to rest her brow against his sternum, and when she breathes next she sinks a comfortable weight against him, though his ribs still ache with every intake of air. The room is quiet, and she doesn't move for a long time (part of him thinks she might be praying, and he won't deprive her of that indulgence; hells, he'd have offered gratitude of his own if it didn't hurt to think, much less speak).

“So,” he says, after a lull. “Nearly dying is something I should be doing more often, then?”

She's quick to raise her head at that, scowling – her brows like swords clashing, and he laughs, “Don't look so serious, Princess. I'm  _kidding._ ”

“Your wit does you no credit,” she tells him sharply, and Varric grins.

“I don't know, Seeker. If that's your reaction, I say it's worth it.”

“Insufferable dwarf,” she says, and he doesn't think she even tries to make it sound scathing anymore.

He chuckles, the sound thick with his tiredness. “Yes, well. Where would you be without me to keep things interesting?”

She doesn't answer, but a multitude of things swim across her face, and Varric finds that's all he needs, really. 

“You know,” he says then. “I'm sure our leader has more important things for you to do than sit at an injured dwarf's bedside.”

“Without a doubt,” she answers simply, but she doesn't move, and something tells him she won't. Not for a long time. And so when his exhaustion pulls with insistent fingers on his mind he doesn't fight it, and it's her small smile that follows him when it draws him back under–

and the warmth of her open palm a steady promise against his heart.  


	5. your face like an open book

(or the one where Cass comes to realize that _everyone totally knows_ )

.

He touches her back in passing one day – she's sitting by a table in the Hall, breaking fast when his fingers ghost over the curve of her neck, and she nearly spits out her tea.

She can't hear his laughter, but she knows the smile that must be on his face – can imagine the exact slant of the particular brand of self-satisfied that must follow her reaction, but she won't rise to the bait, and so she merely lifts the cup to her lips, hoping it will mask the expression on her face.

“Oh, we're being open about it now, are we?” Dorian asks casually from across the table, busy peeling an apple. “Looks like I've lost myself a sov – I was sure you weren't going to come out with it until, oh, another month or so.”

The words register, but Cassandra can't quite wrap her head around them. “What,” she asks, rather articulately for her current state.

A brow raises in answer. “Dear Cassandra,” he says, a grin stretching wide across his lips, his moustache curving. “You look surprised.” He laughs. “As though there's anyone in this Keep not yet aware – I'm surprised the minstrel isn't singing about it.”

It's only his eyes on her now, but she feels it like the weight of the whole room, and a foreign warmth creeps up the back of her neck to settle around her ears. And sweet Andraste but she feels like a girl.

With as much dignity as she can muster, Cassandra rises stiffly to her feet. Dorian follows her movement with a cheerful smile, depositing his apple-peel on his plate. “It's too late to stop the rumour mill now, I'm afraid. It is, as they say, 'old news'.”

She glares, but it doesn't have the desired effect. “We shall see,” she says instead, and with her tea forgotten, stalks from the Hall without meeting anyone's eyes.

.

.

.

“ _Everyone_?”

Leliana looks up from her stack of documents, a bemused smile that Cassandra recognizes as cheerfully false. She isn't even trying to hide that she knows. “I should think so,” she says, and gives her a look. “It's not like you were trying to keep it a secret?”

“I–” There's a protest on the tip of her tongue, but – they'd never really agreed on that, but discretion had been implied, surely. And had they not been careful? “Are we so –  _obvious_?” she asks instead, and this time she's rewarded with the droll raise of a pair of russet brows.

“Cassandra,” Leliana says, and the simple utterance carries unbearable fondness, but also quite a bit of humorous disbelief, and Cassandra wants to flip the whole table. The crow sitting on the back of Leliana's chair tilts is head, as though it too, knows.

“Are you upset? I think it's wonderful.”

She doesn't disagree outright, but – “I detest rumours,” she says instead, and it's the truth – she's never liked having her personal life at the centre of attention, and even less so with regards to this particular part of if it.

Leliana only smiles. “But can you blame them? With the state of the world, people love a good romance to cheer them up. It is in the worst of times you'll find the most exciting stories, after all.”

Cassandra's lips purse, and – she can see her point – has she not herself speculated around the romances of others? That of the Champion – the Hero of Ferelden?

The thought does not make her feel much better, rather it makes her feel somewhat traitorous, and when she leaves the rookery she cannot help but wonder –

How many voices have been raised to discuss matters of her own heart?

.

.

.

“Did  _you_  know?”

Cullen doesn't quite meet her eyes, clearly uncomfortable with the question, and clearly more than aware of what she is talking about. “There was – talk,” he says at length. “I-I wasn't listening – but you know, word travels, and–”

“ _Ugh_ ,” she throws her hands up, and she's out of his office before he has the chance to finish the sentence. That's all she needs to know, really – if Cullen knows, the rest of the Keep certainly does.

She stops at the battlements, takes a moment to enjoy the peace and quiet and the bite of cold air against her face. The courtyard is teeming with visitors this morning, and she very much feels like hitting something, but she doesn't dare go down there now that she knows about the rumours that follow at her own heels.

She thinks of her family then, and wonders if there'll be a letter for her one of these days. The stories still circulating about her dragonslaying are no doubt a benefit to the Pentaghasts, but this is different – someone will no doubt have something to say, and Cassandra does not know what to feel about that.

A visit needs to be made, but she avoids the courtyard and the Hall, choosing paths that make her feel like someone with something to hide, and –

she doesn't know why that makes her feel wrong.

.

.

.

“Oh, I have the situation under control.” Josephine looks up from her letters, and offers an entirely too diplomatic smile. “Whatever rumours find their way to Nevarra, I am sure I can come up with something to distract your family's attention from your...romantic entanglements with our resident storyteller.”

Maker, but she makes it sound like a sordid bodice-ripper, and Cassandra wants to yell. She's used to trailing whispers and rumours, but they're mostly about how many dragons she's slain, not about who she may or may not share her bed with. The fact that she's not yet sharing her bed only makes it worse, and she does not even want to consider what rumours will begin to travel when they get to that point.

She suspects her thoughts are evident on her face, by the elegant brow that quirks with barely contained amusement, and she turns on her heel so fast she almost knocks over a messenger in her haste.

“What would you like me to tell the Van Markhams?” Josephine calls after her, and Cassandra slams the door in answer.

.

.

.

When she finally makes her way back around to his rooms, she's worked herself up into something of a mood, though her ire settles when he looks up from his desk to greet her, with an understanding “Long day?”

She rubs at her temples, but he only pushes a chair towards her, and when she takes a seat some of her stress bleeds out of her shoulders with her next exhale. There's a candle burning low on the edge of his desk, wax dripping onto the table, and she spies the notes she knows is for the next chapter of  _Swords & Shields_. He writes it for her now, and makes no secret of it, and when she looks at the stack of papers her exhaustion lifts a little, replaced by something warm.

“They all know,” she says after a lull, and finds that for all her irritation she sounds rather miserable.

When he looks up again, Varric doesn't look the least bit surprised. “Did you really think we could keep this under wraps? In this place?”

Cassandra leans back, eyes raised to the ceiling. “Yes. No – I don't – know.” To be perfectly honest, she'd taken it for granted – had assumed, naively, that no one would care. But of course they would, her being her, and him being, well – him.

When she turns her gaze back to Varric, there's an odd look in his eyes. “You okay?” he asks, and – there's something else there, behind the question.  _Uncertainty_ , she realizes, and finds herself surprised. But – she thinks then, about her initial embarrassment upon the discovery of the rumours, and how it could seem to him, on the receiving end of her (rather exaggerated, now that she thinks about it) reaction.

She feels her expression soften. “I am not ashamed,” she says then, with a breath. “I would just – prefer my private affairs –  _our_  private affairs, were kept that way.”

He tries a smile. “Well if it helps, I'm almost entirely sure most of it is just hearsay, so there's very little truth going around. And, of course, there are a few things even I don't know the answer to. Not yet, anyway,” he adds.

She groans. “Do I want to know?” she asks, pinching the bridge of her nose.

His grin is genuine now. “That depends.  _Do_  you like being on top?”

She thinks she might have been mortified, once, by such a question from him, but now she only finds laughter, but she has to cover her face with her hand. But when she looks for her embarrassment – and her earlier anger at the loose tongues wagging in the Keep – she finds, to her surprise, none.

And of course it's his doing, sitting there with his crooked smile and her book.  _Her book,_ she realizes, and finds with the admission the swell in her heart that she'd admitted to, that cold day in the Emprise when she hadn't known if he'd make it through the night. Two weeks ago now, and he's been walking without assistance for most of that time, though she can tell his back still gives him trouble. But her severely dislocated shoulder – partly attained by carrying his weight across the highlands – is only the memory of an ache. She hasn't told him, about the hours spent at the bottom of the ravine, and the truth she'd spoken to the silence. She's thought about saying – well, something, but she doesn't know where to start.

But then he looks at her like  _that_ , and her mind is already searching for the words.

“I think,” she says at length, and hopes her voice does not falter. “We shall see.”

His grin turns wicked, but he doesn't take the conversation further and she's glad – there'll be time for that, yet, and there'll be time for what she has to say, too.

He beckons her closer, then. “Want to have a read-through?” he asks, holding out his notes, but Cassandra shakes her head.

“I can wait,” she says.

“Really?” he asks. “Even to know whether or not the Knight-Captain makes it?”

“You wouldn't dare,” she says, and finds a truth in the words even before his laughter reaches her ears.

“You're right.” He pulls the notes back. “I've faced your wrath enough to know that's not in my best interest.”

She looks at him a long moment – studies the contours of his face above the papers, the odd shadows cast by the candle and the fond crinkle at the corners of his eyes. “And yet you are still here,” she says, and finds in the utterance an old fear, though her voice does not waver. It's an old uncertainty – a remnant from a time she cared about such things, when she was young and foolish and told her blunt and brash attitude would appeal to no man.

And perhaps they were right, but the dwarf sitting across the table only grins, and she finds in the smile more than she'd thought was ever meant for her.

“Nowhere I'd rather be, Seeker,” he tells her, and in this moment – this rare chance to catch their breath between battles, between grand balls and falling down ravines – she finds she does not care if the whole of Thedas knows of the way her heart skips when he looks at her.

.

.

.

In the Skyhold rookery, a letter finds its way into a pair of waiting hands.

_'Nightingale,_

_That is what they call you, yes? It's what Varric calls you, anyhow, but he's rather free with his nicknames and it's hard to tell sometimes what are meant to be insults and what are not._

_Anyway. Just writing to say I've been hearing some rather interesting rumours, but going by some of the things I saw last I visited, I can't say I'm entirely surprised, but I thought I should ask,_

_Is he happy?'_

_H.'_

A smile, and a quickly scribbled note, before a crow takes flight, a small shadow lost amongst many.

_'Hawke,_

_Have no fear. He is very happy, I think._

_(But if he asks, you did not hear it from me)'_

_Nightingale'_


	6. your faith, steady as you leap

She cannot concentrate.

She's reading – it's his latest instalment of  _Swords & Shields _and she's waited for this, she's waited  _weeks,_ but the letters blend together on the page, and she can't keep her mind focused long enough to keep up with the words, let alone the story. She follows the sentences with her eyes, but they run too fast for her to chase, and her preoccupied thoughts steal her attention with every turn of the page. She's read the same paragraph five times when she finally slams the cover shut, a noise of frustration pulling free of her lips, but it's swallowed by the silence of her empty quarters.

It's – Maker it's infuriating is what it is, nevermind utterly  _humiliating_  because she's a Seeker trained to focus her mind but one crooked smirk aimed in her direction across the table while breaking fast and she can't keep her wits about her for the rest of the day.

Rubbing her eyes does not remove the image, and her next groan is muffled by her palms. The others have been... _kind_  enough not to bring the subject up in front of her, but there are things they cannot keep contained – Bull's knowing grin being one, and the wary furrow of Blackwall’s brow that speaks of a strange concern she does not have the patience to deal with. Vivienne does not mention it outright, but Cassandra is not blind to the slight purse of her lips that speaks of intrigue despite her better judgement.

Of course, the worst part of being at the mercy of the amusement of others is when their assumptions are false, for insofar as her 'liaison' is concerned, the truth is far less sordid than her companions would no doubt like to believe.

Her fingers twitch against the book's cover, and with her next breath she tries to settle her thoughts enough to focus, if not on this task then something else, Maker  _anything else_ , but – it's the scar across his nose shifting with the slow curl of his mouth, and deft fingers dealing out cards across the tabletop, the movements too quick for her eyes to follow, and she wonders–

She's out of her chair with a jerk that nearly has her tripping over her own feet. The novel lies on the table, forgotten, and finding no aid in her Creator's wisdom on this matter, Cassandra leaves to seek the closest thing.

.

.

.

“You mean you two haven't–”

“No _._ ”

The word falls a swift rebuttal, cleaves her words in half before she's finished speaking, but Leliana only looks at her with fond bemusement, and Cassandra regrets the choice, however desperately made at the time, to seek her old friend out for this conversation.

The rookery is bathed in the odd silence that only comes to the Keep this early in the morning – even the crows are quiet, crooning softly where they are tucked against the rafters like small shadows. The idol of Andraste sits a gentle reminder at the corner of Cassandra's vision, and – she should have felt at ease here, so high up and away from prying eyes and murmurs at her back, but instead there lies a restlessness in her bones that she can't shake off.

“So,” Leliana speaks up, after a moment has passed. “Are you going to...?”

Heat creeps up her neck with clever fingers, and Cassandra feels rooted to the spot. “I–” she begins, but the words stick to the back of her throat.

“Yes?” And there's a smile accompanying that word, elongating the sound and making it honey-sweet and oh-so-knowing and  _Maker, why had she thought this would be a good idea?_

But Cassandra tries again, fingertips pressed to the bridge of her nose, trying to gather her elusive thoughts enough to form a functioning sentence. “If you remember, I told you once – in  _confidence_  – about...” She sets her jaw. Breathes, one sharp exhale – “The mage.”

Leliana's brows quirk with affection and something akin to humour. “Yes, though I seem to remember you speaking of him rather more fondly than  _that._ ”

“I'd had more to drink than is strictly advisable in  _your_  presence,” Cassandra deadpans, and tries very hard not to think about the things that were discussed on the night in question. Andraste save her, she can to this day only remember snippets, and most involving topics that should never have seen the light of day.

“Oh, you had fun and you know it,” Leliana says. “But yes – the mage, if that is truly how you wish to address him. What about him?”

Cassandra is silent, turning the options over in her mind – to say what she came to discuss, or to throw herself from the rookery and spare herself the humiliation. Leliana is a close friend – arguably, her closest – and though one who already knows too much, she also knows how to keep her secrets. And Cassandra needs someone to keep this secret – to share this particular burden before it drives her mad.

“There's been...no one else,” she says at length, and looks pointedly at the table when her friend does not even bother to hide her surprise. “In all my years.”

Leliana, for all her grace, actually balks. “Not one?”

“No.”

“But – that Antivan envoy that time? Surely–”

“No.”

“Then, that templar in–”

“ _No._ ”

“Not even that handsome Seeker recruit–”

“Absolutely  _not!_ ”

Leliana does not even bother hiding her bafflement. “But he was so fond of you! He brought you flowers.”

Cassandra purses her lips, and tucks her hands into her elbows to keep them from fiddling with her belts. “If you remember, he was also ten years my junior _._  Even if he had – and I – it was out of the question!”

Leliana looks at her from across the table, her surprise slowly moulding into an expression of dawning realization and – not a small amount of mirth. “And so  _Varric–?”_

A sigh follows (or the combination of one and a somewhat pitiful groan), but her answer is honest. “Yes _._ ”

She seems the consider this, and Cassandra grows restless in the stunned silence that follows, but the rookery is not made for pacing, and the cramped space does not help the itch in her legs as she prowls the short distance between the wall and the balustrade. The floorboards creak beneath her weight, and she curls her hands to fists to keep them still.

Finally, Leliana speaks up. “Well, that is...something of a surprise, I admit. You've been together for some time now, yes?”

Cassandra nods, but the gesture feels stiff, and she can't meet her eyes. “Longer than most assume, I think, and...longer than most would no doubt wait to...proceed with matters,” she adds, tongue fumbling clumsily with the words.

“'Proceed' here meaning–”

“ _Yes_.”

She receives no reply to that, and so she sighs – the sound an oddly vulnerable thing when she releases it. “I don't – know what to do,” she admits then, turning. And there's understanding on her old friend's face now – the amusement gone, for Leliana is nothing if not perceptive. “There is – I do not know the rules, and I feel...” Utterly overwhelmed. So incredibly out of her depth, but – also thrilled, with a strange eagerness no doubt better suited a much younger woman. But for all the years on her back (nearly four decades, Andraste help her), and her cynic's stubborn heart, she is not so much afraid of the leap itself as she is of the fall that comes after.

She does not speak the words out loud, but Leliana's response is understanding, regardless. “It is a big step, for anyone. But you are not a girl, Cassandra, and you've been down this path before.”

It's an easy truth, and would it only have been so familiar a problem. But it is not, and so, “Not this path,” she says quietly, hoping the words convey the things she cannot say out loud. Because it's not just about scratching an itch, or however else her novels would portray it. She is no stranger to that manner of relation, for all the long years that have passed since her last tryst, but this is – different.  _Serious._  It might not have been so to begin with, but now it has grown past what she can confidently wrap her head around, and she fumbles with the significance of her feelings like she does her words.

But from the slight rise of her brows, Leliana hears the admission for what it is, though she does not seem at all surprised by it. “I see," she says. And then, “For what it's worth, I am glad – you of all deserve this happiness.”

Cassandra does not hold back the snort. “And all the things that come with it?” The distractions, the fidgeting, the girlish leaps her heart makes, and being subject to the tender mercies of the resident minstrel's ballad-writing?

Leliana only smiles. “But he is worth all that, no?”

And for all her irritation, her silent frustration and her inability to keep a level head in his presence, the answer comes easily – “Without doubt.” And her voice does not waver now, nor does her tongue trip over the words. It's no longer just a truth for herself to keep, but as she lets go of it, Cassandra feels no regret. Rather, it's a relief that stills her fretting hands now – a surety that comes easily under the rafters and the soft crooning of Leliana's crows.

As for the Nightingale, there is no teasing remark to follow the admission, nor is there a clever smile or the promise of mischief in those all-seeing eyes, although Cassandra knows there will be room for all these things – a conversation revisited, and preferably with enough wine to drive the blush from her cheeks – at a later date.

Instead it is with quiet honesty that she opens her own heart. “Falling is not so bad,” she says, with an old knowledge that sits in the curve of her sombre smile, that tells stories of both hurt and healing, but Cassandra does not ask. And Leliana adds, with a fond twinkle now in eyes that have seen much and this, too, no doubt–

“When there is someone there to catch you.”

.

.

.

She mulls over the words the following week, turns them over in her mind as she goes about her regular routines – sword-practice in the yard (Bull has discovered that she hits in earnest when his jokes border on impropriety), assisting Josephine with herding visiting diplomats through the Keep (their ambassador does not pry, but discreetly leads the conversation away from precarious topics, like ones that include their resident dwarf in some form or another), and a regrettable romp through the Maker-forsaken Fallow Mire with Dorian providing a cheerfully innocuous monologue about the many virtues of _height differences_.

By the end of the week her restless distraction has been replaced by complete and utter exhaustion, but when she retires it is not her own quarters she seeks, but a familiar chair where the air carries the lingering smell of ink and paper.

Varric is not there when she arrives; she has not seen him all week (the Inquisitor has been off chasing rumours and he'd tagged along, according to Josephine when Cassandra discreetly mentions his absence), but that does not stop her from making herself comfortable. His are not like her own rooms – he does not enjoy her quiet, he likes to hear the sound of footsteps above, the muted chatter of life and laughter from beyond the walls– but she finds her desired rest as she sinks into his chair, and the noises of the Keep dwindle to murmurs in her ears as she props a book open in her lap.

She does not ask herself anymore why she feels so at peace here, in this cramped space with his notes cluttering the desk, one of his spare tunics thrown over the back of the chair and his boots against the wall – the lone earring sitting by the inkwell, that she turns between her fingers when she reads. They are familiar things, and she draws her comfort from them now, and not from the solitude of her own company.

She does not visit these thoughts often, but – perhaps more now than she'd used to, before there was a 'them'. For they are small truths, these odd little things – the tunic and the boots and the earring. Proof that he's grown comfortable, that's whatever he used to think of this room ( _a prison, and she the keeper_ ) it is home now. The clutter, the rumpled bedsheets and his personal notes, they are evidence that'll he'll return (at least that is what she tells herself, because if she does not – if she starts thinking about the missing crossbow and his extended absence she might think of other things  _and she will not go down that road again, she will not_ ).

She's halfway through the second chapter (without distractions this time, and it's a small blessing), when the door swings open, and when he steps inside she can see a long journey in the heavy set of his brow, the tired lines of his shoulders. But – he looks up to find her in his chair, and the smile that curves along his mouth takes some of his exhaustion with it, and there is a flutter of wings behind the cage of her ribs, brushing with soft feathers against the brittle, white bone.

“Just the woman I was thinking about,” he says, and she marks her page to still her shaking hands, closing the book in her lap as he places the crossbow by the wall with familiar care. With the weight dispensed, he rolls his shoulder with a groan, and when he runs his fingers through his hair some of it pulls loose of the cord to fall against his jaw. Her gaze is caught by the sight, and Cassandra proceeds to forget what she'd been about to say.

Varric looks up to find her – staring, to put it bluntly, and a brow raises in amused query, and she can't tear her eyes away quickly enough. “See something you like, Seeker?”

She finds the glare easily enough, but she has to purse her lips so as not to smile. “I see a scruffy dwarf,” she manages smoothly. 

“ _Scruffy_? And here I was sure that bath we took up at the Storm Coast should have done the trick.”

Despite her efforts, the corner of her mouth lifts, and he chuckles – a low, mellow sound, and Andraste preserve her, when did she so thoroughly hand her heart over she can't even pretend she's not reacting the way she is?

“Been here long?” he asks as he comes over, and his hand is a warm pressure against her shoulder. He does not touch her in public often, but in the privacy of their own space he allows himself the liberty with an ease that has with the long weeks grown from careful to certain. A shiver jumps along her spine, and when she tilts her head it's with a clear intention. And she catches the flash of his answering grin before he leans in – the slant of his mouth against hers a brief, unbearably warm thing, and when she sighs her marked page is lost between her slackened fingers.

But he does not push the boundaries she's so subtly set, almost without her own knowing, and when he draws away with a smile to deposit the bag slung over his shoulder, Cassandra has to keep her hands from reaching to tug him back.

“So, how was your day? The Mire the same festering wound it's always been?”

“Ugh,” she says simply, and – there's that laugh again, and she's glad to be sitting now, for it's the sort of laugh that makes girls weak-kneed in her novels, and oh but she'd never considered there'd be a time in her life when she'd feel like one of those girls (and worse –  _enjoy it_ ).

“I'll take that as a 'wouldn't recommend for a romantic getaway'. Well, unless you  _like_  festering wounds riddled with plague, that is.” Cassandra shakes her head, but his grin only grows in turn. “So, what's yours then?”

Her confusion tugs her features into a frown. “Mine?”

Varric settles into the chair across from her – the one she usually occupies, but he makes no mention of it, and the simple gesture carries a lot more significance than it implies. “Your idea of a romantic getaway,” he clarifies with a flourish.

She snorts, but he only raises a brow. “You are serious,” she says, surprised.

He grins. “Like the aforementioned plague.”

Cassandra huffs, but – the thought lingers a moment. “I have always liked the coast,” she admits then. Anthony had used to take her to the sea when they were younger, but she keeps the words at the back of her tongue, tucked away safely. That is a topic for another day, not now, not when–

“I'm guessing this is a different kind of coast than the one I just wasted a day of my life traversing,” Varric drawls, with an added mutter about 'uneven terrain' and through the pale memory of old grief, Cassandra finds a smile.

“Quite.” She pauses. “I have always enjoyed the sight of a calm sea. It soothes the mind.”

Varric is silent, and for a moment his expression is unreadable to her. Then, “A calm sea, huh? I'll keep that in mind.”

Cassandra frowns, curious despite herself, but an idea stirs with warmth behind her breastbone. “For?”

And the look he gives her is decidedly droll. “For when this whole business with Corypheus is over. I figure once we save the world, we're due some time off.”

And her hear skips, then, because this – this casual mention of what comes  _After_ is more than they have discussed. It's more than simply making it alive to the end of the path set before them. No, this goes far beyond that, to a future she has not had the time or the heart to even consider, let alone wish for. There's too much danger for  _wishing_  – too many unpredictable factors to consider. She thinks of Anthony, whose end was met on such an ordinary day. There was no world on the brink of destruction, and yet she lost him all the same. Just as easily – or perhaps even more so, for the constant danger that looms at their backs – Varric might not have made it back. May still not, or perhaps she is the one who won't, in the end. There are no such guarantees, Cassandra knows.

But – he has put it before her now, and it's at once such a simple thing, and everything but simple, and she can see on his face that it is not an offer made lightly though his tone would suggest otherwise, but she knows him far too well to be fooled by that now. And it's not a promise of forever (because can either of them really promise that, with the world the way it is?), but rather a wary hope for something more than just to make it past the next day.

“I think...I should like that,” she says, and it's with a conviction that makes him visibly relax – she can see his shoulders loosen from under the weight of the offer – and though her answer is one she's given him several times already, it is also much more than that. She thinks about that first morning, standing before his desk with her heart in her throat and his story in her pocket, and that night on the balcony at the Winter Palace, but what she's given him now is not just the promise for tomorrow but for months – maybe years down the line.

And she knows then, finally, what she wants to do.

Rising from her seat, her movements feel stiff, like her limbs are too long for her body, but she does not falter. Mistaking her intentions, Varric reacts with a surprised oath. “Ah, shit – sorry, Princess, I didn't think about how late it was. You probably want to get some sleep.”

She does not answer – does not contradict him, for fear her voice will betray her. Usually at the end of the day, this is how it goes. She'll mark her page and retire to her own rooms, and he'll bid her good night. He does not reach for her on these departures, but sometimes she'll be bold – will lean in for a kiss, always brief, and never anything more than that ( _no fingers covering hers, tugging her down to meet a waiting grin that asks her to stay_ ). But most nights she simply leaves, book tucked under her arm and a smile her sole companion as she makes her way across the dark courtyard, and – a persistent feeling of expectation she cannot quite suppress.

This night – this night she does not try to.

She hesitates by the door, shaking fingers hovering over the handle and her thoughts tripping over themselves in her mind.

“You alright over there, Seeker?” She hears him ask, a familiar humour in his voice. “Door giving you trouble?”

She does not answer, and when she draws her next breath she lets her hand drop, fingers gripping the key sitting below the handle before giving it a single, deliberate turn.

It's such a small thing – just the barest of sounds, really, but the soft  _click_  might as well have been the toll of a Chantry bell for all that it seems to bounce against the walls, and in the near deafening silence that follows Cassandra does not breathe.

Behind her there is no response, and before she loses her courage – before she can over-think this, before she allows her doubts to take further root now that she has made her decision–

Fingers close around hers, silencing her thoughts. His skin is warm, almost shockingly so, and when he gives a gentle tug she turns without resistance, movements smooth where she is usually so brash. And oh, but she is blunt and difficult, sharp edges and impulsive decisions but with this _(with her heart)_ she has been so careful, has taken her time and considered her words before speaking them, her actions before doing them. And he has let her take her time, has let her keep her distance and her comforts though she has not always shown him the same courtesy.

But there comes a time where thinking will bear no more fruit, where decisions must be made, and is she not a woman of action, not words? She thinks of her calm sea, and of him – a port not in a storm, but a safe harbour regardless, and her conviction lies a soft warmth around her heart.

And so it is not with force she reaches for him now – not like in his novels, because they're more than that, more than metaphors and bad pacing and coarse descriptions of intimacy. They are slow and steady, her palms roughened by her life ( _by her sword and shield_ ) but gentle against his jaw, fingers tugging at his partially undone hair, and when he laughs it shows in her smile. And when she leans in it is with her heart, vulnerable even in her strength, but he takes no more than she offers, even as his hands reach to tug her down with an urgency that has heat shooting up her spine.  _This is not a kiss for leaving._

And so, “I would like to stay,” she says in the lull that follows, the weight of her brow pressed to his, and she does not meet his eyes when she says it, but her voice does not tremble, and the hands on his shoulders are calm though her heart leaps a frantic dance within her chest. “If you have no qualms.”

When she finally lifts her gaze, his grin is both wicked and kind – at once knowing and disbelieving, and she loves him then, in that moment. Admitting it comes easy, like something tightly coiled unfurling, and when she draws her next breath his hands are on hers, to pull her closer.

“Sure about this, Princess?” he asks. “The door's still there if you want to use it.”

She laughs – a breathless sound, for his concern even now. “I am sure.”

Varric grins. “Well I know better than to argue with you when you've made up your mind about something.”

“Don't push your luck, dwarf.” But she does not hold back her smile as she comes to sit on the edge of the bed, her weight sinking comfortably into the mattress. The change evens out their difference in height, and her new vantage point is – interesting. She realizes she has not given much thought to his being of a different race – not with regards to them, anyhow. She has had other concerns, but not that. Never that.

But she can tell he has considered it, in the lingering shadows that lurk behind his eyes. “Having doubts about the chest hair?” he asks wryly, and she does not believe she imagines the uncertainty in the question now.

And Cassandra – laughs, inexplicably, because they have come to this point, she thinks, where she can see right through him. But it does not bring her the satisfaction it would have, once. Instead it is strangely humbling, because it's not simply her seeing, but him choosing to show her.

“I would not have you without it,” she says, and knows he hears the truth for what it is. And – finding his words from a few weeks earlier, tucked away in a safe place, she adds with surety, “I am exactly where I want to be.”

And she finds in his answering grin, in his warm grip around the curve of her jaw and his loose hair between her searching fingers (and they're not shaking now but steady, emboldened by her assurance), that falling – the surge in her belly and the terrifying moment of complete and utter lack of control – is not bad at all. Not when there's a strong and steady grip on her hands ( _her heart),_ to keep her from hitting the bottom.

The door remains locked, and in the soft and drowsy quiet that follows she finds her sleep comes easily, wrapped in the smell of ink and vellum and the warmth of his skin. It's the small comforts of her book on the table and her boots on the floor – her shirt over the back of the chair along with his. And it's the most that she's ever given, but – as his arm curves a reassuring weight over her hip to pull her closer, Cassandra knows it's also the most she's ever gotten in return.


	7. your love of her being

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a little note on this chapter -- it's a continuation of chapter 6, but with more...say, explitic details (*clears throat meaningfully*). The rating for this story has also been changed to 'Mature', but for those who don't want to read the smut (although it's nothing super explicit, because this way better suits my style of writing), you won't miss anything if you skip it; the story will pick back up next chapter.

“I am exactly where I want to be,” she says, and it's all the incentive he needs.

There's nothing urgent about the kiss that follows – not like the last, when he'd been driven more by honest surprise at her choice to stay than any real semblance of control. It had been a spur-of-the-moment kind of thing, a rarity for them because from the start they've been everything but – they've been careful, a slow fire building under pressure but then she'd turned the lock on his door and all sensible thought had promptly fled his mind.

But he takes his time now, tracing the line of her throat up towards her jaw, and he watches the dark of her eyes grow wide until they nearly swallow up the rest. She's on his bed, and the added height it gives him is – strange, and Varric is suddenly struck by how  _human_  she is, with her long legs arranged before her. There's nothing remotely dwarven about her, from her stature to the angle of her nose, but she's never cared; never given him reason to think she'd have preferred someone of her own kind.

“Having doubts about the cheekbones?” she asks then, a wry mimicking of his own query, and Varric grins.

“I'd be an idiot,” he says, and means it.

Cassandra smiles, and her expression changes – melts into something rare, a look of affection that's earned, not simply granted. And for all its differences from those of his kind, her face has always been one of his favourite features, the elegant arch of her brows and the strong jaw, and cheekbones to cut through glass, if he were being poetic (and she'd strangle him for that description, no doubt). At her angriest she's lovely, features sharp like the sword she wields, and oh he's seen her  _angry_  – seen her furious, eyes flashing and her hands grabbing for his throat without restraint.

He won't lie and claim that the thought of something other than animosity between them had never crossed his mind before joining the Inquisition –  _a memory leaps before his vision, his back thrown into a chair and her face inches from his, pressing a book to his chest and her sharp tongue spitting demands_  – but he doesn't tell her that, and he doesn't tell her that he'd assumed what would finally prompt this change in their relationship would be an argument. He'd imagined her anger, raw and potent and her hands fisting in his shirt, and kisses between punches because that's who they've been for so long.

The truth of the matter is quite different, but he doesn't tell her that, either – that the truth, however much he's avoided it in the past, has played such a major role in their transition from hostile remarks exchanged in passing to stolen touches between battles. He's a damn good liar, but he doesn't lie to her, not anymore, and so perhaps it's not so strange it's not with anger she looks at him now but instead with trust, her brows slack and the eyes below hooded, her severe mouth parted with a breath. And the sight steals his from his lungs.

Caught between his fingers her chin is strong (stubborn), but her lips are softer than they suggest, and he feels her smile – the slight curve of the corners as she tilts her head, eyes slipping shut. Her hands are cool against his shoulders, slender fingers searching where they push against the open neck of his shirt, and Varric can't help the grin. “In a hurry, Seeker?”

She doesn't deny the question, and the silent assertion strikes him with near physical force, and if his hands shake where they hold her face she does not mention it, and she doesn't tell him to slow down when they tug at the buttons of her shirt. She's opted out of armour this evening, and the thin fabric falls softly against her curves – a rare indulgence he rarely sees outside his own quarters, or hers – and it's such a private gesture, a rare privilege that speaks of a comfort she does not feel easily.

Hands dipping beneath the hem, his fingers ghost over bare skin and her breath hitches – a soft, barely-heard sound, and when she breathes next some of the tension disappears from her shoulders, and Maker help him but he can't hold back the groan that follows as his grip encircles the cage of her ribs.

She's lithe, more so than her usual armour suggests – muscles hard steel coiled beneath her skin, soft but for the scars that criss-cross her stomach and up her sides, old remnants from wounds before his time, but his hands follow their paths as he reaches to push the shirt from her shoulders. She discards it without concern, and he finds himself smiling at the brusque efficiency to her movements. It's not very sensuous and knowing her, it's not meant to be, but he can't tear his eyes away. The dim candlelight throws odd shadows across her bare skin, accentuating the strong lines of her shoulders, the swell of her breasts.

“Shit, but you're beautiful,” he says before he thinks, the honest admission lacking his usual flair, and the smile he'd have accompanied it with if he'd had his wits about him. But the surprised laughter that escapes her is a breathy sort he's only ever caught on very few occasions, and when she rests her hands against his chest there's a clear appeal in the gesture – an invitation that speaks through the slight tilt of her head, the fond crinkle at the corners of her eyes.

Like everything else, it doesn't happen with the ease he writes about – bodies writhing, melding together perfectly like missing puzzle-pieces, because there's still some nervousness clinging to her movements and her hands fumble when they tug at his shoulders. And hells, but he's never been with a human before, and she's  _tall_  – gorgeous, long legs and the slope of her arching back an endless thing (andMaker but he could write pages just on the dip of her collarbones alone) – and though he's got the strength, and his hands are sure on the swell of her hips, when he lifts her it's with more difficulty than he'd imagined, and she falls against the mattress with an audible ' _ooof!'_

But – her deep laughter melts into kisses, these too a little fumbling but earnest, and when he draws her hips towards him next its with less awkwardness, until he settles across her with something that's almost close to ease. And she doesn't yield to his added weight but pushes back, and – Varric wants to laugh, but it's quickly swallowed by her no-nonsense grip at the fastenings of his pants, and the grumble from her throat when she can't get them loose.

But she's persistent in this as in anything she does, and he's not had the chance to cheekily offer his assistance before she's pushing the fabric down his hips, and when her fingers curl around him whatever clever remark had been on its way off his tongue drowns in the groan that spills, raw and unbidden from somewhere deep in his gut. And  _fuck, but it's been long,_ it's been months before her and weeks with her and now she's bare beneath him, halfway wrapped around him and there's blood in his ears thundering to the sound of her ragged breathing and it's at once too fast and  _not nearly fast enough._

Her free hand is on his shoulder then, nudging his weight, and – “Varric,” she says,  _breathes_ , Maker she breathes it and his mind nearly goes blank. She doesn't say anything else, but he reads her intention clearly, and so when she pushes he follows, her movements oddly elegant in their brashness as she lifts herself up to settle across his hips.

“Well, guess that answers that question,” he laughs, but when she glares her heart is not in it, he can tell, and the smile that curls along her mouth is anything but angry.

“Shut up,” she tells him – commands, almost, and his hands tighten where they grip her sides. “It – is more comfortable this way,” she adds, with the kind of surety that dares him to ask. And she might only have had the one lover, but the knowledge that sits in the simple utterance tells him more than if she'd hashed out her entire affair.

And so, “You won't hear me complaining, Princess,” he tells her honestly, and watches her expression soften a fraction. And he finds in himself the sudden urge to draw the remaining tension from her shoulders, her back – the sort no rest or exercise seems to be able to chase from her bones, that she carries with her everywhere she goes.

He wonders how long it's been for her, but he doesn't ask. Long enough, no doubt –  _too damn long_ , for someone who carries the burdens she does. He's always suspected, by the simple fact that she tries to drive herself to the brink of exhaustion in the practice yard, but it's never been a thing to tease her about, and he won't do it now, either. Instead he allows her to take the lead, and there's no tremble in her hands now, but – and Andraste's  _tits_ , but he's not imagining the clever smile before she deliberately tightens her grip, he refuses to believe he is. 

When she at last eases onto him its with a breath, and her warmth prompts a startled oath from his lips, but it's the sound that draws from her throat that nearly undoes him. It's a deep, almost hoarse thing, honey-rich and lovely, the mixture of a sigh and a groan and he feels it all the way down his spine to pool like warmth somewhere in his lower back. Her knees tighten against his sides, and when she arches her back he follows, and it's not anger but they clash regardless, his hands on her hips hard enough to bruise and hers in his hair, pulling. And –  _shit_ , he can barely keep up, because it's been weeks of significant glances, stolen touches and misconceptions, of arguments and apologies and of her long legs tucked together in his chair, her lower lip worried between her teeth when she reads and his bed cold every night with only his thoughts for company. And now it's her weight against his, the unimaginable depth of her warmth and the sight of her above him, and he doesn't know if he wants to wax poetry or blasphemy.

Her skin is almost feverish now, a flush peppering her collar and a fine sheen of sweat along her brow. Light and shadow spill across her lean human curves, shifting with the rise of her chest with every thrust, and–

he comes, between the heat and her hands fisted in his hair, a vicious oath tumbles off his tongue, and it's not smooth but jarring, entirely inelegant, and if he wasn't so stunned he might even have been a little embarrassed.

The shudders reside, and his head falls back with a groan, hands releasing the hold on her hips to slide down her legs. She's tense above him still, muscles coiled tightly, almost rigidly, her brow pressed against his sternum and the dark of her hair obscuring his vision. And – she's quiet, almost alarmingly so and he's about to ask when she breathes – a harsh exhale that speaks, even if it doesn't contain any words.

“Cassandra?”

The use of her actual name makes her flinch, and she looks – not disappointed, but like she doesn't  _want_  to look disappointed and is failing.

“It is nothing,” she tells him, almost brusquely and before he can ask, she adds in a softer tone, “Nothing new, anyhow.” And when she says it her voice carries anger, and – not a small amount of shame. And he's heard it before, Varric realizes – in the rare admissions of her failures; the things she regrets.

And Maker take him, but she already has enough of those.

He doesn't wait to explain, moving before she has the chance to open her mouth again, to flip her on her back and he can tell she's startled by the fact that she allows it.

She looks up to meet his eyes, instantly suspicious in the way only she is able, and Varric grins. Her legs are pulled up, and he feels the goosebumps that skitter across her skin as he shifts his grip to push one of her knees down.

“What are–”

“Trust me, Seeker?”

It's a simple question, but for her it's more than that, because he knows he already has her trust. This is different – it's more than the allowance she's already granted, because she'd still kept some of her control over the situation. What he offers now is something else, and whoever this other lover was, it's more than she's given him, it takes only one look at her face to determine that much.

Deliberately, he places a kiss to the skin just on the inside of her knee, and she sucks in a breath through her nose. The intention is more than clear, especially for one who's read his novels as thoroughly as she.

“Want me to stop?” he asks, and it's only partly playful because it's her and if she says  _yes_  he won't push no matter how good his intentions, but–

“No,” she breathes, hoarsely, her accent thick, almost sultry but for the slight waver in her voice.

It's all he needs, and his smile is wide where he presses it against the skin along her inner thigh, and when he nudges her leg next there's no resistance, but the muscles tighten just a fraction beneath his fingers.

“Relax,” he says, coaxes almost, and she draws another sharp breath. The exhale that follows takes some of her tenseness with it, but not all.

“I  _am_  relaxing,” she tells him, and when he laughs he feels her shiver.

“Make me believe it.”

“Var–” but the word dies on her tongue, lost when he finds his mark, and her back arches almost in response. “Oh,” she says, breathes, before that, too, dwindles into something incomprehensible as her legs go slack around him.

“ _There_  you go,” he says with deliberate enunciation, and she –  _curses_ , and if he wasn't otherwise engaged he'd have made a point to write down the date of the occurence.

She doesn't retort with a cutting remark now, but he feels her fingers in his hair, tugging, pressing him closer and Varric tries very hard not to smile too much. She doesn't concede control often and this small attempt at regaining it is so very  _her_ , and – part of him wants to see how far she can be pushed ( _how slow he can take things before she'll resort to pleas, demands_ ), but she's wound so tightly, stress and responsibilities clinging to her skin, her bones, and it's not the time for that, he knows.

 _For another day, then,_ he decides, and with clever fingers (a pickpocket's fingers, quicker than his tongue, if such a thing can be believed), he finds her warmth, a shock of heat around his knuckles and the answering heave of her chest is all he needs. 

He feels her release when it comes, the frantic clench of her fingers in his hair and the arch of her hips, but it's the sound that escapes her he wants to remember – the hitch in her breath that's almost surprise, and the throaty groan that follows at its heels, to dissolve into something like a sigh. Head thrown back, her knees are locked tight around his neck, but with as shudder the tension bleeds out of her with visible force, and when she breathes next her fingers loosen their grip on his hair to fall against the mattress.

Nose pressed against her stomach, he asks when her shudders have subsided, “How are you holding up?”

“ _Ugh_ ,” she groans, the sound partly muffled by the pillow, and it's such sincere response, Varric can't do anything but laugh, and when he shifts to find a better position she follows, a near foreign sluggishness to her movements as she tries to arrange herself around him. And – you wouldn't think it with their differences, him with his stocky size and her, all sharp edges and too-long limbs, but she curves a comfortable weight against him, languid like a cat curled up to sleep, legs tangled in the sheets and her nose in the crook of his neck. And it's the most relaxed he's ever seen her, shoulders slack and her breathing a heavy, content sound.

“I think,” Varric says, into the lazy quiet that has settled. “I remember you threatening to have my tongue cut out once, if I didn't tell you the truth.” He finds paths across her back, memorizes them – the dip between her shoulder-blades and the scar running along her lower back, across her hip. When he grins, it's into the hollow of her throat, where her pulse leaps a steady drum against her flushed skin. “Guess we can both agree it's a good thing you didn't follow through.”

Cassandra laughs – a deep, drowsy sound this time. And it's the most he's ever heard her laugh in one evening, too, and the thought sits like pride but warmer, less self-satisfied but rather with a sense of fulfilment Varric doesn't find surprising anymore. He'd give her more if he could; the truth of it is inescapable now.

“I will concede,” she says against his skin, “That there are other uses for it, though if you'd suggested  _this_  back then I might not have been quite so willing to discover them.”

“Oh, you never know, Seeker,” he says. “Things might have been very different if you had.”

“Doubtless,” she agrees with a snort. Then, “I am glad they were not. This–” she says, sure fingers pressing against his chest, her palm above his heart. “I prefer this.”

“Happy to hear it, Princess,” he says, and when he angles his head to kiss her she meets him, and there's nothing awkward now in the lazy slant of her smiling mouth against his. Her braid has come loose, and he winds it between his fingers, tucking it behind her ear when she lays her head back down. And he doesn't move for a while, choosing instead to listen to her breathing as it evens out slowly, in tune with her heart, and her head grows heavy where it rests against his chest as she succumbs to sleep. The candle on the desk is burning too low to give much light now, and his quarters are silent save the muffled howl of the wind against the Keep, and Varric wonders, suddenly, at which point he'd started thinking of it as home _._

It should terrify him, but it doesn't. She's made room for herself in his life, perhaps at such an early stage it's taken him this long to actually figure it out, but it's the little things that can't escape his notice now – one of her many well-thumbed novels always within his sight, and the small idol of Andraste she usually keeps with her that's now tucked into his tunic for luck. But most of all it's the Seeker herself, and her steady warmth in the curve of his side like she's never been anywhere else.

It's the first night in a long time that he's not going to bed thinking about his own mistakes – about Corypheus and Hawke and the hole in the sky. Instead when he rests his eyes he thinks about her, the fierce curve of her mouth and her rare, drowsy laughter, and sleep comes easier than it has in months.


	8. your honour to fight for

He wakes, as always, from a dreamless sleep.

It takes only a moment for his eyes to adjust to the dark, and next the soft, even breaths that aren't his own. She's fast asleep, tucked towards the wall and hogging most of the blanket, and he watches the shift of her shoulder blades as she breathes into the quiet. There's a slight noise when she does it – it's not quite a snore but close, and for a while Varric just listens to it. He's never seen her sleep before – well, not like this. He's seen her doze by the fire at camp, and her eyes grow heavy when she's reading, but nothing like this intimate display. 

His fingers twitch against the mattress, but he doesn't reach out to touch her, knowing that she's a lighter sleeper than her current state suggests. And it's such a new thing, this sight; an allowance she grants no one else, and oh but he's a selfish bastard for wanting to prolong it. Her hair is in unfamiliar disarray, the braid come half-undone and curled like a cat's tail on the pillow.

He knows it's early from the lack of noise from the Keep. He's usually not up before the muffled clink of plates and cups from the Hall becomes audible through the walls, but he's awake now, despite the fact that it can't be long past dawn, if even that.

He'd always pegged Cassandra an early riser, but her breathing speaks of a lethargic kind of sleep he knows doesn't come easy to any of them these days, and one he's loath to deny her. And so he extracts himself with care, mindful not to wake her, but she doesn't stir as he slips away. He finds his shirt, locates his boots with some difficulty and it takes him a while to track down his pants in the dim light, and – she would have tossed the pillow at his face to smother the grin he can feel, as he gathers her own discarded shirt and breeches to drop them over the back of the chair.

He spares her one last look before he ducks out, closing the door quietly behind him before picking his way along the corridor leading to the Hall. It's quiet when he enters, filled only with the soft murmurs of those who've already been up for hours, and no one offers him a passing glance as he makes for the kitchens.

The cook, a no-nonsense woman called Kennis, with her sleeves rolled up to her elbows and her hands covered in flour, offers him a glance when he enters and a brusque “Now there's a face you don't usually seen in here this early”, before shouting for one of the kitchen hands to get her a rolling pin. “So, what can I get you? I don't– Lyla, Maker help me, whatever you're making I can smell it burning! Where is your head at?” There's a squeak that might have been an apology from across the room, before she turns back to Varric. “What was I saying?”

He offers his most charming smile. “Do you have any of those sweet, sponge-y, cake-y things I keep hearing rumours about?”

He's awarded a raised brow for that, and she stops her kneading to put her hands on her hips. “Those are Lady Pentaghast's favourite, and I've only got two left of the last batch.”

Varric says nothing; he's stared down his share of stern and motherly human women – Hawke's own mother being a rather notable adversary – to know when to push and when to fold. And he doesn't for a second think she speaks out of ignorance; as far as the rumours around Skyhold go, Kennis is no doubt aware he's not the one who'll be eating them.

She looks at him long and hard, before lifting her rolling pin, like a soldier raising a blade in warning. “Alright. Mind, she likes them with honey, and her tea–”

“Strong enough to put the fear of the Maker in you,” he intercepts smoothly, and by the slight purse of her mouth, she tries very hard to hide a smile.

“Quite right. Lyla!” The kitchen maid appears in the doorway, looking appropriately terrified and slightly out of breath. “Topmost cupboard in the larder – the ones I baked yesterday, and fetch some honey while you're at it.”

The girl frowns. “But – there's only two left of that batch. What about Lady Pentaghast–”

“Where have you got your head these days, girl?” Kennis sighs, before muttering under her breath, “Maker's breath, you'd think the youngsters would be the first to know.” The rolling pin is proffered, and Varric feels bad for the girl. “Just fetch the damn things, and then you can take the time you need to think about just who'll be eating them.”

The girl blinks, chances a glance at Varric – then goes a rather fetching shade of red, and the cook smiles. “There you are. Now get!”

She almost trips over her skirts in her hurry, and Kennis begins rooting through the cupboards. “She up praying or training?” she asks, voice muffled from where she's bent over. “I'm surprised she's not been in here herself, yet – it's a good hour past her usual schedule.”

Varric only smiles. “Oh, she's – busy. Very devout, you know how it is.”

She gives him a look for that, and then – she snorts. “Indeed.” But she only shakes her head as she makes to brew the tea, and he catches the quiet 'about damn time that woman took a break' before it's lost in the  _bang_  of a cupboard door thrown shut.

Footsteps behind him signal the arrival of another early visitor, and Varric looks up to find a dark, whiskered face in the doorway, followed by the raise of a heavy brow and a surprised “Oh, it's you.”

“Hero,” he greets. "Not eating with the horses today?" 

Hearing the exchange, Kennis turns, and scoffs. “My, but I am popular this morning.” But a smile is quick to follow. “What can I get you, Thom?”

If the use of his real name bothers him at all, he doesn't show it, but the cook's tone doesn't suggest any scorn on her part, Varric finds with some surprise, and Blackwall only smiles. “Just some sugar for my tea, if you've any at hand.”

She nods. “Joel!” she bellows, and the kitchen hand chopping vegetables behind her startles, and nearly drops his knife.

“M-ma'am!”

“Get some sugar from the larder – and see if Lyla hasn't gone and died in there while you're at it. Ah – no matter, there she is.”

The girl appears in a flurry, a cloth-covered plate in her hands. She makes for Varric. “Here you are,” she says, with a polite smile that doesn't quite hide her intrigue. “I'll get you a tray for the tea.”

“Those for Cassandra?”

It's an innocent query as far as queries go, but Varric knows how to read between the lines better than most, and the sentiment behind the words is obvious. Kennis looks up from her work, no doubt having heard it, too, but she says nothing, and Varric finds himself suddenly in a very strange position.

Of course, never one to be caught off guard, “Is that friendly concern I hear?” he asks with mock cheer, aware of the laden tension that's settled between the pots and the pans and the bustling kitchen hands trying very hard to pretend they're not eavesdropping.

“As much as you'd expect from anyone,” Blackwall responds easily.

Varric spares him a sidelong look. Then – “No. Not just anyone. Something a little closer to home, I think. A brother, maybe, but you're not her brother, Hero,” he says, although he doesn't know why he says it – if it's a challenge or a warning, or neither.

Blackwall shrugs. “And? Her brother might be dead, but I reckon if he were alive he'd be at your door, just the same. I'm just filling a role – doesn't matter if she wants me to or not.”

Despite the severe expression on his face, Varric can't help but grin. “Worried my intentions aren't entirely honourable?”

Blackwall snorts, and – Varric doesn't think he imagines the slight raise of his whiskers. “If they weren't, she'd be the one you should be worried about.” But then his expression turns serious again. “No. I just want to make sure for myself.”

It's something of a bizarre situation, and yet – maybe not so bizarre. He's caught snippets of conversation, the transition from what was once friendly banter to her now brusque dismissals and -- hell, he had a brother once, too. And even if Bartrand was a bastard, it doesn't change the fact that Varric knows what it's like to lose one. She'd never admit it, of course, but Varric suspects there is an easy answer to why Cassandra took the truth of Blackwall's identity the hardest.  

Despite the underlying warning, Varric finds a smile. “And what would you do if they weren't?”

Blackwall only offers him a look. “Hold you still for her to punch,” he says with a conviction that tells Varric he's not throwing words around for the heck of it. 

“Seeker's a big girl, Hero. She can handle herself.”

“I've found in these matters that it doesn't make a difference if you've lived a whole life. She has a heart, like anyone else. Hearts can break, just like swords can, if you apply enough pressure.”

She'd appreciate the comparison, no doubt, if not scoff at the implication that she's breakable. But, “Can't break a sword with a crossbow,” Varric says then, and tries for humour, but the words feel strange in his mouth, suddenly. Different than they'd sounded in his head, and – he remembers Cassandra's own words then; the admission that had floored him, so many weeks ago ( _"I will not be so lucky"_ ).

“I reckon your crossbow just might,” Blackwall says then, and the words hit home, delivered with the sure-fire efficiency of a warrior with an affinity for spotting weaknesses, even through the defense of humour. Varric isn't surprised – no one else save the Inquisitor has made mention of it, but Bianca's visit to Skyhold stirred up enough talk to reach even as far as the stables. And this might have been before he'd even written his first note to the Seeker, but from the way he's being watched now, Blackwall couldn't care less.  
  
“Yes, well,” he says at length. “It won't be by my hand.” And this time he doesn't try to make it sound even remotely humorous.

He doesn't know what he expects (by now it could be anything, really), but Blackwall only nods. Then, with a strange smile, “Good to hear.”

A long silence follows that could almost be called awkward, and for once, Varric doesn't have anything to add. But before he's given the chance to steer the conversation in another direction (hopefully far, far away from where it is at present), Kennis appears at his elbow.

“Here you go, black as the Maker's wrath,” she declares, pouring two cups and depositing them on the tray, and Varric almost feels like thanking the big guy himself for the timely intervention.

“Well, if you don't need me for anything else,” he says, deliberately, taking the tray and making for the door, before the conversation – hell, the entire morning – has the chance to get any weirder.

“She's smiling more,” Blackwall says then, and the words draw Varric to a halt in the doorway. When he turns, Blackwall looks – something close to uncomfortable, or maybe a little nervous. “It's – good to see. I'm not her brother, but if I were I'd be pleased.”

Varric doesn't really know how to respond to that, but settles for, “That sounds strangely like brotherly approval to me, Hero. Wonder what she'd say to that.”

His brow furrows, and – good grief, but if there isn't some weird resemblance going on there, but he's not about to tell Cassandra that. In fact, telling her about any of the morning's occurrences might not be very wise, and so -- “Or how about we pretend this conversation never happened?” 

Blackwall exhales. “Please.” But – he's smiling, and Varric can only shake his head as he makes to leave, muttering under his breath with derisive wonder --

“And this is why I never get up early.”

.

.

.

She wakes alone.

It's not what she expects – he usually sleeps long past reasonable hours, but when she's roused from her slumber it's to a silent room and an empty bed. By the slight dent in the mattress and the lingering warmth it's not been long since he left, but the unexpected absence has tendrils of an old worry crawling through her gut.

She's slept longer than usual, too; she can feel it by the sluggishness that clings to her movements when she sits up. Her eyes feel heavy, and her responding groan is an honest sound in the quiet as she stretches her legs, the yawn pulling free quite of its own will. And Cassandra considers the room – the missing clothes, and her own slung over the back of the chair. He'd had time, then. And had it been an emergency of some sort, surely she would have woken (or he'd have woken her)?

The door opens then, and she starts, frantic hands grabbing for the sheet, but – it's only Varric, a tray balanced in one hand, and the door is closed behind him before she's had the chance to protest, much less cover herself.

Her flustered reaction is greeted with an insufferably cheerful grin. “Well, look who's awake.”

She finds a glare, but it lacks her usual conviction. “I could say the same for you,” she says. “You are not usually up this early.”

Her eyes are drawn to the tray in his hands, and he proffers it in answer. “You're right. But I figured you'd be hungry – this being pretty late for  _you_ ,” he says with a chuckle, before placing it on the bed before her, and she's momentarily distracted by the smell that wafts up from the plate sitting between the two cups of steaming, hot tea.

Varric is still talking as she reaches for the cloth. “I mean, you've usually carved your way through three practice dummies by this time. I think I might be a bad influence on you, Seeker.”  

She looks up at that, and she knows her surprise must be evident on her face, because she's making no effort to hide it. But -- _honeyed cakes,_ and Maker have mercy on her heart for her pathetic weaknesses. 

“What?” he asks, but there's hidden pleasure in his smiling eyes, and if she weren't so taken aback by the gesture, she'd have whacked him with the pillow for his smugness.  

“You did not have to,” she says. “But – thank you.”  

He takes a seat on the bed beside her, careful not to tip the tray, and she gathers the blanket around her loosely – it does not matter much to bother with propriety now, with just the two of them. 

Her ease does not go unnoticed, she can tell by the way his eyes linger on her shoulders, loose and relaxed in a careless sort of contentment she hasn't felt in years.

“So, I'm curious,” he says then, as Cassandra reaches for one of the cups. It sits, warm in the curve of her palms, and when she takes a sip it's strong – the way she prefers it, and the small knowledge that he's remembered this little piece of information makes her smile against the rim.

“What?” she asks, closing her eyes.

“Your brother,” he continues, but – he leaves it there, as though the topic does not come entirely out of the blue, or that he'd simply mentioned some common banality and not  _this,_  which for her is the hardest topic of all.

Cassandra opens her eyes again to look at him, but for once she cannot tell what he's thinking. “What about him?” she asks at length, and she does not mean for the words to sound so defensive, but after so many years, Anthony's memory still clings with remnants of a stubborn grief that will not quite let go. And -- she's not used to talking about it so freely, and Varric has never asked of it before.

“Just curious." He smiles. "Wondering if he would have approved.” He doesn't specify what, but covered in only a sheet and eating honeyed cakes without cutlery in bed, there's really no need, and she thinks she might have felt flustered, once, at the way he's looking at her, but now there's only the swell of warmth in the bottom of her stomach.

And there's more to the question than simple curiosity, Cassandra can tell, but he's not going to talk about it -- she knows that, too. And she's not going to push (because they've tried that, her pushing and him resisting and it was not a good arrangement). Instead she roots around in her memory for her brother's face, clear to her now even after so many years – the dark brows and the smile that always came so much easier than her own, and the rich laughter she can still hear sometimes, at odd moments.

“It is hard to say,” she says then, around a smile because he'd been so protective of her, of course he'd have had  _something_ to say about her choice, but – “He used to tease me for my height when I was younger – arms and legs too long for the rest, it was...an awkward phase.” She shakes her head at the memory, but the next makes her smile widen almost involuntarily, and she adds wryly, “He always said I would have a hard time finding someone tall enough.”

Varric snorts. “That's irony worthy of one of my worst books.”

“He would no doubt have found it endlessly amusing,” she agrees, staring into the tea ( _“dear sister, one day I won't be chasing off dragons but suitors, if you'd only smile a little more often”)._ “But – I like to think he would have approved as well. So long as I was happy.”

“And are you?” Varric asks. “Happy?”

She does not have to think about it.  _More than you could ever know._  "Very much," she says, stretching out a leg until it nudges against his knee, and feels his fingers curl, warm around her ankle. “What brought this on?” she asks then, curious to see if he'll tell her the truth, now.

“Just had a thought,” he tells her, and – it's sincere, but at the same time he's hiding something, but she does not pry. Instead she drinks her tea in silence, and eats her cake, fingers covered in honey, and it's the most indulgent thing she's allowed herself since she was a girl.

“So, no regrets then?” Varric asks, but there's no real concern in his voice, and -- there's that grin again that makes her wants to reach for the pillow.

“None,” she says, and instead of the pillow, plucks the last cake to pop in her mouth before he can grab it, and her own smile comes easily now.  

But he only makes a grab for her instead, nearly knocking over the tray and she laughs – the sound muffled by her full mouth, but probably loud enough for the rest of the Keep to hear, but she finds she minds very little. There's the taste of honey sweet on her tongue and his stubble against her throat, and she is –  _happy_. Truly, startlingly so, and though the thought of her brother sits with a familiar weight in her chest, Cassandra does not doubt the steady assurance of her own heart. 

.

.

.

The sun has long since risen when he sees her in the practice yard, sword at her hip but a strangely relaxed grace to her usual, loping gait. But she doesn't brush past him with the same brusqueness he's come to expect, and when he nods a silent greeting, she returns it – warily, but it's something. Hells, after weeks of suffering the cutting silence of her disapproval and hurt, it's  _everything_.

He thinks of his sister then, the dark fall of her braids and her smiling eyes, and he's glad to find the memory does not bring him the shame it once did ( _because how had he honoured her kindness, her good heart?_ ). He does not ask her if she wants to spar; it's a little too soon for that, yet, but it's not an impossible thought, he finds, catching the brief curve of her smile as she throws herself into her usual routine.

That evening, he works on the rocking griffon. He hasn't touched it since – well, since everything (his dishonour, his sentence and his release, however undeserved), but now he grabs his chisel with sure hands. He carves some new details – polishes the feathers, and the beak to a smooth curve; makes the seat comfortable. For a cheeky little girl, maybe, with dark braids and clever, smiling eyes and a penchant for exaggeration, who'll give them all dreadful nicknames but have them wrapped around her little finger with her first laugh.

He mentions his thoughts to no one, least of all her (the dwarf might not have minded, but she'd wring his neck for the suggestion alone, and – the thought brings a small smile with it). And it doesn't matter if it's a far-fetched dream for a man who doesn't even deserve to have one, because for the first time in years, Blackwall (or Thom, he doesn't know anymore, but does it matter?), not a Warden or a hero, and not a brother or even an uncle ( _and yet_ ), hinges his hopes on a very fragile, very tentative  _maybe._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now if you look to your left, you'll find yours truly, curled up in the ditch labelled 'The Potential that is Uncle Blackwall'


	9. your duty to your heart

They wish to make her Divine.

Well – not quite. She is one of the candidates, but the likelihood is there, and she doesn't know what to think. She's never so much as considered the possibility; it has never been in the cards for her. But the Conclave changed many things, and many fates – her own, in more ways than one, and the Maker's plan has never been more obscured. After Kirkwall she's been walking blindfolded, hoping –  _praying_  – that she's making the right choices; renouncing the Chantry, starting the Inquisition, supporting the Herald...  

_Varric,_ she thinks, but finds no trace of uncertainty in the thought. For however much she's doubted, this is not a choice she regrets. None of them are, and so if she doesn't know exactly where her path leads, Cassandra knows where she stands. At the Inquisitor's side, and at his – at least for now.

But what comes after? He'd made his offer, if lightly; a break – her calm sea, and a chance to rest her weary soul, but after that...They have not discussed the subject openly, aware of their own mortality as few in the world are at this moment, but it has been implied, certainly, that their relationship is not merely the means to an end. Cassandra doesn't doubt that, but if they should both survive, and there are long years to follow, where will their path lead?

She doesn’t know, and – it terrifies her.

She's had only her thoughts for company for a good while, and so when the soft footsteps approach, she startles. But it is only Morrigan's boy, a book tucked under one arm and a curious tilt to his soft smile that has none of his mother's wry cunning.  

“Hello,” he greets. “Were you praying?”

Had it been anyone else, Cassandra thinks she might have felt annoyance at being interrupted, but it's an innocent question, asked with the curiosity children are wont to have, and so she finds in herself an old patience reserved for reckless recruits. “Yes.”

“Mother says praying is for fools.”

She's not at all surprised by the declaration, but holds back her immediate, sharp response. Whatever her personal thoughts on the witch, she knows from experience the injustice of being on the receiving end of carelessly wagging tongues –  _“That's Vestalus Pentaghast's niece. Girl's fool parents thought they could overthrow the King. Pray she does not follow in their footsteps.”_ –  and the boy must have heard his share of talk in Celene's court. Cassandra will not add to that hurt, however well he hides it.

“And what do you think?” she asks instead.

He smiles, and there is a world in those eyes, far vaster and with more knowledge than a normal child ought to have at that age. “I haven't decided,” he says, and for all her discomfort when dealing with children, in that moment Cassandra feels none of it.

“What are you reading?” she asks, nodding to the book he carries.

He touches it, smile turning bashful. “Oh – it's a story,” he says. “It's about a dragonslayer. Mother does not like it,” he adds, with boyish guile that reminds her, suddenly, of her brother, long ago. “She says books like this are silly tales, written by bards with nothing better to do. But she lets me read them if I have finished my studies.” He holds it out for her to take, and Cassandra finds her laugh comes unbidden and light despite her previously heavy thoughts.

“I have read it,” she says, fingers closing around the spine as she turns it over in her hands. The leather is well-worn, and she traces an idle finger along the faded gold lettering. It sits a familiar weight in her hands. 

His eyes light up at that, and for a startling moment, the delight in them matches his age. “You have?”

Cassandra nods. “When I was young,” she finds herself saying with a strange ease. “A little older than you. It is a good tale.” She does not tell him the story is fiction loosely based on one of her own relatives (an exaggeration of facts to rival Varric's), but she did not lie – it  _is_  a good book.

“Kieran?” The voice curls through the quiet of the gardens, gentle for the sharp tongue that speaks it, and they both look up as its owner appears.

“Seeker,” Morrigan says, surprised, though Cassandra cannot tell if it's feigned or not. “Certainly an odd pair to find, conversing.”

The boy tucks the book under his arm, but says nothing of their conversation, although by the way her eyes track the movements before her, Cassandra has a feeling his mother knows all the same. 

“I hope he was not disturbing you,” Morrigan says then, a twinkle in her keen eyes. “I know how seriously you pious souls take your praying.”  

Ignoring the jibe, Cassandra only smiles. “Not at all. I was glad of the company.”

“Good.” She addresses her son, then, “Go put that book back where you found it and get ready for supper. I shall join you in a moment.” The boy smiles at Cassandra, and scurries off without protest.

“You have raised him well,” she hears herself say.

Unnatural golden eyes meet hers, accompanied by a smile that looks almost out of place on a face usually bearing an expression of barely contained derision. “'tis not a hard task, with such a lad,” she admits. Then – with a tilt of her head that makes Cassandra feel like she's somehow seeing  _through_  her – “Contemplating the virtues of motherhood, Seeker? Well, now.”

“I–” but her words seem to find it prudent to fail her, and – and she doesn't know what she'd been about to say; if it had been a scathing rebuttal or a stuttering  _perhaps_.

The realization steals her breath, and settles with startling weight in her chest.

Morrigan laughs softly. “Well if you were not, 'tis obvious you are now,” she muses. “Now, now. There's no need to look so scandalized. 'tis not the worst of fates, and from what I hear, the possibility is certainly there. You are not celibate.” The last is added with a knowing look, and Cassandra pretends not to have caught either. 

“It – is not for me,” she manages at length.  

The witch scoffs. “Why? Because it is not part of your Maker's plan? For a woman who carves her way through the world with a sword, you put a surprising amount of significance in divine arrangement.”

“It is the way it is,” Cassandra says, defensive. “The way it has always been.” She does not know why she says it, but she adds – “And even if it were not, it makes little difference. I am past my prime, and – with him, it is – there would– it would be  _unlikely._ ”

A single brow raises, and Morrigan looks decidedly unimpressed. “My, but that is quite the list of excuses. You must have considered this quite thoroughly.”

“I have not– that is–”

A smile curls along her mouth, knowing but not unkind. “I shall take my leave, before you burst,” she says. “Though I should add that I find there is little value in the notion of there being such a thing as the  _prime_  of a woman's life. To spare you Chantry sensibilities I shan't ask if you still bleed, but I will make my own assumptions, based on your use of 'unlikely' rather than 'impossible'.”

Then, with a small shrug, she turns smoothly on her heel. “And half-dwarven children are not so rare that they do not exist,” she adds, before making for the Keep, 

leaving Cassandra on the bench, speechless and more than a little mortified.

.

.

.

“She's  _what?”_

Despite the surprised outburst, Nightingale regards him coolly from her seat across the cluttered desk. “They have put us forth as candidates,” she repeats, with a calm Varric doesn't feel. 

“Both of you?”

She nods. “The Conclave shortened the number of available candidates,” she says, wryly despite the grief that still lingers in her eyes. “The Inquisitor will have a hand in the decision, I think.”

Varric doesn't respond to that, still trying to gather his thoughts enough to let the whole thing sink in. It just – sounds so implausible, but he knows it's not, and he's seen far more implausible things this last year alone to use that as an excuse.

The spymaster's look softens. “What are you thinking, Varric?” she asks. “It is alright to be troubled. This is no small matter.”

He laughs, but it's without mirth. “Now that's an understatement if I've ever heard one.” But she's not smiling, and neither is he. “Ah, shit – I don't know what I'm thinking.”

It's not entirely true – he knows exactly what he's thinking. And it comes with some surprise – it's been weeks since he thought of her last, Varric realizes, but the memory doesn't sit quite so heavily in his heart as it once did. Bianca had let him go for the sake of duty, familial if not divine, and it had taken years for him to let her go in return. And now that he finally has, it's to find it happening again? Is that his lot in life then, he wonders, to always come second?

Part of him wants to say she wouldn't, but he can't, not because he doesn't know her but because he  _does._

“Varric?”

“You know,” he says. “Having someone choose something over you, for duty or whatever other reason – it's  _shit.”_  He sighs, a rough exhale. “I just...didn't think I was going down that road again. I mean, Bianca was about as dutiful as the next dwarf, but Cassandra...” 

He doesn't finish the thought, but he doesn't have to – Nightingale is as good at reading between the lines as he is, if not better. There are few in their mutual acquaintance who holds duty quite as highly as the Seeker.  

“She might not be asked, you know. And even if she is, she might not say yes,” she tries, but it sounds like petty comfort more than actual truth.  

Varric snorts. “Is this a question you can say 'no' to?”

Her silence is answer enough, and Varric doesn't stick around to bear it. This is a conversation he needs to have with someone else, and he won't make the mistake of postponing it. Not this time.

Not when it might cost him the very thing he strives to keep.

.

.

.

He doesn't have to look far to find her, and he knows by the strange quiet that greets him when he opens the door to her quarters, that she's been praying.

She looks up when he lets himself in, raising her eyes from where her brow rests in the cup of her palms. And Varric knows the expression that greets him – recognizes it from Kirkwall, when she would pace the length of the room, angry when he wouldn't give her the answers she sought. But he remembers it most vividly from the first few days after the Conclave, when the world fell apart around her and she had to put her trust in a possible culprit with a strange mark on her hand and no guarantee but her own. It's the look she gets when she doesn't know how to proceed, but – there's something else on her face now, too, bright in her tired eyes. And this is something he doesn't recognize.

“You've heard, then,” she says, cutting right to the chase, and – Varric almost smiles. It's so very  _her,_ so perfectly, wonderfully blunt, like a hammer to an anvil.    

There was a time when he might have tried to evade the question – tried to talk around it. But that's long ago now, he'll do her the same courtesy this time, and so – “Yeah.” But he doesn't say more than that, because he can tell this is something that has been on her mind, and so he simply waits for her to speak. 

He doesn't know what he expects her to say – that the choice, however much it hurts to make, is one she still has to; that it's an inescapable fate. Or that it's her duty, with the world and the Chantry on the brink of dissolution, to do what she can to keep at least one of them together.

“I have always given everything,” Cassandra begins then, and his heart sinks with the knowledge of what will follow. “For my faith, for the Seekers...for the Inquisition. I have held my duty higher than my heart,  _always,”_  she continues, and Varric closes his eyes; waits for the final blow.

“But...perhaps it is not too much to ask, to be selfish for once.”

He opens them, and finds a smile in the gentle curve of her mouth. “Cassandra,” he hears himself say, and there's no nickname, and no levity behind it.

“That is my name,” she says. “I am surprised you remember.”

He laughs – a startled, disbelieving sound as he walks to cover the small space still between them, and when he reaches out to touch her he pretends his hand isn't shaking. But she leans into the touch now, closing her eyes, and he's at once struck with the familiarity of the scene, but – the differences, most of all.

“I'm a bad influence on you, Seeker,” he says then, when he finds his voice. “Choosing the selfish route? That's my job.” It's not the first time he says the words, but there's honest wonder in them now, not just humour. 

She shakes her head, opens her eyes to meet his. “In all my life, you are one of the best things that have happened,” she declares, and the admission – floors him. “I cannot let you go. I will not,” she adds. “Not for anything. I–”

When he kisses her it's with less restraint that he would have liked, but part of him can't curb the near irrational fear that preceded their conversation and that lingers still, even after her words, and Varric doesn't even bother to pretend that she can't tell. But her only response is to grip him just as tightly, fingers curling in the fabric of his shirt and when she breathes it's a harsh, ragged sound, and through her calm her kiss is desperate, claiming more than it gives. Her arms come to wind around his neck, and when he draws back it's to press his nose into her collar. And she doesn't let go, but keeps her arms around him, seeming almost unwilling to release him, and he smiles against her skin.

This is what it feels like, then, he thinks – to be someone's first choice.

“You sure this is going to sit well with the Chantry higher-ups?” he asks, because he can't shake the lingering feeling of unease – that even after this, something she can't control will claim her, regardless of her own decision.

“I have spoken with the Inquisitor,” Cassandra says, as he draws back to look at her. “I have asked for her support in favour of Leliana for the position. She was – understanding.” By the smile that follows the last word, it's clear it didn't take much convincing for their leader to take her pick. And he feels the fool, then, for not considering that.

He would have liked to pretend he didn't let his relief show quite so clearly (maybe later when he tells the story, he'll leave that part out), but in this moment he can't be bothered.

“You worried,” she says then, but despite her words her smile quirks, an almost sad thing. “But I do not blame you. And I am – sorry, for that. You removed my reasons for uncertainty, and this was how I repaid you.”

He could try for something humorous, he knows. Maybe a “Now I know I've  _really_  been a bad influence on you”, and one time that might have been his knee-jerk response, to opt for wit when faced with an admission such as this one. But he doesn't even find it in himself to try. 

“What can I say?” he asks instead. “Not ready to let you go yet, Seeker.”

She laughs, and he sees her own relief, bright in her eyes. “You will not have to.” And there's far more to that statement than she lets on; more than she'll tell him right now. She's made up her mind about something, but Varric won't ask what that is – not yet. Not with Corypheus still a threat.

But after that...after that he'll ask.

“Good,” he says instead, as he reaches down to kiss her again, his smile stretching wide and untroubled as he leans down to capture her own. “Wasn't planning on it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Since it's Valentine's and you're all so lovely, I'm aiming for a double update on this tonight. The next chapter will be up shortly!


	10. your life in the hands of fate

The final push against Corypheus happens (and as a writer Varric considers this to be some sort of divine form of poetic justice), where it all went to shit in the first place.

.

He loses sight of her between falling debris and the ground heaving beneath them – he's trying to get in a good shot at the blasted dragon, but it's hard just keeping his footing. But he never really worries about her in these kind of situations; most of the time she's got her feet more firmly planted than the lot of them combined, and she'll be the first back on them when the dust settles.

But this time it's different. This isn't just some trek through the wilderness, or some rogue dragon out of nowhere. And it might not be a real Archdemon, but it's stronger than anything they've been up against, and it's all Varric can do to even land a hit. 

Cassandra ducks into his line of vision as the dragon rears back, shield proffered to deflect a falling rock, and he throws her a grin, finds a sliver of good humour in the midst of everything. And for a brief moment it's like any other battle.

Of course, being a writer, he should have realized this was only the build-up before the tragic main event.

He sees her when she goes down – sees the dragon raise it's front leg, and that she can't get out of the way quickly enough. There's a shout in his throat, tearing past his lips, and when it crushes her between its claws and the rubble his heart might have stopped.

What happens after that is a frenzy of noise and movement. Someone lands the killing blow (it might have been Tiny, or it might have been their leader because he can hear her voice raised in an outrageous scream and he feels her fury but he can't respond). The dragon falls, and then it's Corypheus bearing down on them, and Varric can't think between the hail of arrows and his heart trying to push its way past his ribcage.

“Check on Cassandra!” the Inquisitor shouts, before tearing up the stone staircase, but Varric is already moving. It's hard with the rubble and the dragon toppled in the middle of it, and there's a cut above his eye that won't stop bleeding and a steady stream of oaths he pulls from somewhere dark and long buried.

He finds her not far from the creature, lying halfway on her stomach ( _like she sleeps when there's enough room on the bed_ , the thought leaps out, unbidden and unwanted), her shield still held between slack fingers, and her arm propped at an odd angle that warns of a broken bone. Her sword is nowhere to be found, but the thought is quickly forgotten as he tries to move her on her back, shaking fingers working to unbuckle her breastplate. It's cracked, and comes apart with an ease that has real fear shooting up his spine.

He's not talking. He's not cursing, hell he's barely breathing when he scrambles to press his ear against her chest to listen for a heartbeat, and – he finds it, a trembling rhythm, but Cassandra doesn't stir, still in a way he's never seen her.

“You know, Seeker, this would be a good time to open your eyes,” he tells her, as though she can hear him, but not a single muscle twitches beneath his fingers when he reaches to touch her face. “Any moment now.” And he tries not to make it sound like a plea – tries to keep his voice light, but still there's no response.  

He doesn't realize that it's over before the others are upon them. Tiny is the first to arrive, an oath on his breath as he picks his way across the rubble.

“Is she–” the Inquisitor asks, but fear cleaves the question in half before she can say it.

“No,” Varric says, and hopes the conviction in that word alone is enough to keep her that way. They'll have to move her, get her to a healer, but the knowledge that he can't comfortably lift her without making things worse sits with furious helplessness, and for a moment he feels the absurd desire to laugh _._

It the Hero who bends down, a hand on his shoulder and a gruff question that Varric can only nod to, before he lifts her smoothly. The others are quick to follow, and there's someone shouting for aid, but–

“It will be alright, darling,” Vivienne tells him as she is carried away, and there's no cold iron in her voice when she says it. “She's a tough sort. She'll recover, you'll see.”

“Yeah,” Varric agrees, because with his hands empty with his own powerlessness, what else can he do?

.

.

.

But she doesn't recover.

The healers can't tell him what's wrong – 'her wounds are superficial now, but we can't get her to wake' one tells him evenly. Another simply shakes her head in wonder, and a third sits by her bedside an entire night, but when morning comes pleads for the Maker's mercy and that 'believe that she will make it through this, and she will'.

But Varric doesn't have time for the Maker, except maybe to curse him, because here is one of His most devout, teetering on the brink of life and death and He can't bring her back ( _or won't_ , the thought clings with dark knowledge around his heart). And he knows what Mother Giselle wants to say that she doesn't; that she'll be at His side at last and that it's for the best, it's what she'd want. And he doesn't care how blasphemic he's being; Varric isn't ready to let the bastard have her. 

When he asks if they've got any better healers in Skyhold, the Inquisitor can only shake her head, and he sees how much its hurts her, she who has been told she has the Maker's luck but can do nothing but sit on her hands now. The world celebrates their victory, but within their closest circle the celebration is a muted thing with one of their own inexplicably unable to recover and another missing. Chuckles has taken off Maker knows where, and Varric can't help but feel anger, hot and furious, because he might have been able to do  _something_  – some Fade-related crap that could save her. Because he might be a dwarf, but Varric has had enough dealings with the place to know that whatever is keeping Cassandra from waking up, it's nothing physical. 

He's also far from ready to give up, and so he pesters the healers even as they shake their heads. 'We've done all we can' they tell him, and 'it is up to the Maker, now', but he won't have it, because accepting their words means there's nothing left to do, and that all that remains is to sit at her side and watch her fade away.

The first few days after Corypheus' defeat, Skyhold is busy with diplomats and nobles arriving in throngs to meet their leader, and at any other time Varric would have found it a spectacle to behold, but now he has no mind for it. Instead he spends his hours in the Silence, sitting at her bedside as the Keep teems with visitors, celebrating a victory that's hers as much as anyone's, but that she doesn't even know about.

He comes to realize how well he knows her face – the shift of her expressions from her rare, soft smiles to her fury – by how foreign it appears to him now, slack in this state that looks like sleep but isn't. Her brow is smooth of worry and anger, the lines at the corners of her mouth barely visible and she's neither smiling or frowning, but something in-between. It's an expression he grows to hate as the days crawl by on sluggish feet, and as he sits at her side, keeping a desperate grip on the memories of smiles and glares as they slip from numb and grasping fingers, Varric laments that  _he can't even hold on to this._

.

.

.

She wakes and she's Divine.

The robes are unfamiliar and heavy –  _where is her breastplate, her sword and her shield?_ – and they cling like hands at her throat, slowly suffocating.

 _It shouldn't be like this_ , she thinks, but finds wrongness with the thought. Her Throne is a hard pressure against her back, and it pains her to sit, every breath a heavy, hurtful thing as her robes weigh her down, like she's in water and there are stones in her pockets.

It shouldn't be like this, but it is, and with time she comes to accept it.

.

.

.

He starts talking, when the Silence becomes too much to bear.

“So,” he says one morning, a box in his lap. “I found this.” It's every letter he'd written her, back when he'd made his first, careful approach. He'd figured she would have burned most of them, but he'd found them when he'd gone to look for an extra shift of clothes. Tucked under the bunk in her quarters, he'd been surprised to find the contents, the many scraps of paper folded with obvious care. A sentimentality he would have teased her for, if she'd been awake to glare at him for it.

Now he just holds the box, the longest letter staring back up at him from where it's tucked amidst all the others – a rolled-up parchment tied with a small silk ribbon he doesn't know how she's gotten her hands on; she's not a woman who owns anything with ribbons. It's Ruffles' doing, probably – or Nightingale's, and he tries to imagine the look on her face when she'd asked for it, but he can't manage it. All he can find when he roots through his memory is the expression that's on her face now, and in a surge of sudden anger Varric almost chucks the box across the room.

He picks up the letter, but he doesn't unroll it – he knows the contents by heart; can recite them from the top of his head if asked to. “Never did finish this,” he tells her. “Was planning on having more time. There was going to be a whole chapter where they confess and everything, and an epilogue set in the future. Very standard stuff – they'd have a kid. Boy or girl, hell I don't know. A cliché plot device, probably, but they'd be happy, so who cares?”

She doesn't respond, and the fact that  _this is what he now expects_ nearly breaks him, and he barely notices when the letter crumples between his clenched fingers.

“This isn't how it ends,” he says then, and he can't keep the grief out of his voice. “I know I told you that if you love a character you give them pain and a heroic death, but – shit, Cassandra, I don't  _care._  I'd write five whole chapters where all you do is take naps if it'd change anything.”

“I love you,” he tells her. He speaks the words out loud, but it's nothing like it should be. There's too much regret in his voice, and it sounds like a deathbed confession more than anything else, and Varric knows – he's written his share of them, all tragic, but none as sincere as this. “And you're going to have to wake up so you can tell me how it ends,” he says. “Because it's not going to be like this.”

He doesn't know if she hears the plea, and the Silence grows and grows. And Varric can only sit, head in his hands and an unfinished letter at his feet, pretending that the world is not still coming apart around him.

.

.

.

She wakes, and it's to small hands in her hair, tugging on her braid. A soft “Mama”, and a weight against her side. A whisper, like a secret,  _“Wake up.”_

 _I am awake_ , she thinks, but the words won't come out of her mouth, and she forgets them in the next moment, when the little hands press with soft palms against her cheeks, and there is laughter in a small, round face when she opens her eyes.

“You slept for a long time,” the girl says. “Da has been up for hours.”

She blinks, and when she lifts herself she feels – heavy. Like she's wearing armour, but she's not ( _is she?_ ) “Where is your father?” she asks, but the words don't sound like her own, even if her voice does. 

The child smiles. Kind honey-brown eyes and a round nose, the features are familiar, but Cassandra can't place them. “Where is your father?” she asks again, and the words seem a bit more like hers, now. There is a name at the tip of her tongue, balancing, teetering, but she can't grasp it.  _What was his name?_

The girl tilts her head. “Waiting,” she says. “He's been waiting for you to wake up.”  

 _I am awake,_ she thinks, but the thought sounds silly, almost petulant, and so she doesn't speak it out loud.

There are small hands tugging at hers, but they can't pull her out of the bed, and when she falls back against the mattress she doesn't stop falling. 

.

.

.

It's on the night of the fifth day that he finally caves.

The quill shakes in his hand, and desperation burns with its choking grip around his windpipe. There's ink on his fingers, staining the page and his neat scrawl looks foreign – like someone else's. But he doesn't compose another; he only has enough strength for one.  

The fortress is asleep when makes for the rookery, but he's not surprised to find Nightingale at her desk, head bowed in silent prayer. She looks up when he arrives, eyes tired and he knows that what keeps her up is also what is keeping him from rest.

“Varric,” she says, her voice a gentle thing, and he catches the flicker of her eyes to the note in his hand as he proffers it. But he can't speak the words, and so she accepts it without asking.

He watches her skim the contents, sees her brows lift with surprise, but she doesn't question him about it. She simply goes to fetch one of her crows, tying the note to its leg with practised ease, and – there's a prayer at the bottom of Varric's throat now, desperate words and desperate oaths blending until he can't tell them apart, but he doesn't speak either out loud. The idol of Andraste sits by the wall, beckoning, but he can't make himself look at it, or at Nightingale as she pours him a cup of honeyed wine.

She doesn't ask him anything, and he doesn't tell her, but he keeps her company as she prays in the long hours that follow, before the dawn comes crawling with a rosy light over a clear, unblemished sky that gives them no joy. 

.

.

.

Several days pass in the slow anguish of no change, before something finally does.

It's not yet dawn when he starts awake by footsteps, more alert to sound now than he's ever been, before the door opens. It's Nightingale who strides in first, silent as a shadow and with the Inquisitor at her heels, but it's the third shape that draws Varric's eyes, like a tether thrown to a desperate man–

“ _Blondie_ ,” he hears himself say, and his voice doesn't sound like his own, because there's something pushing its way up his throat, and it might be relief, or disbelief, or a combination of both.  

Anders smiles, and beneath the travel-worn robes and the shadows under his sunken eyes, Varric sees an old friend – the man who'd save kittens from the gutter to give to Daisy; who'd ask about Varric's stories no matter how ridiculous he found them, and who'd spend whole nights keeping vigil when one of them took ill. 

“I got your letter,” he says. “I came as quickly as I could.”

He doesn't wait for Varric to respond, heading instead for the bed and its occupant, and Varric finds a gratitude he can't name, or even speak. “This is she?” he asks, already busy rolling up his sleeves.

Varric nods, and though he doesn't trust his voice – “Yeah.” He doesn't tell him that it's been days, that the healers have done all they can and that he's Varric's last hope because  _there's nothing else that can be done and he won't leave it up to the Maker, he won't._

But he doesn't need to say anything, and Blondie doesn't ask. He only closes his eyes, breathes, and – Varric knows what's coming, has seen it before, and so when he next opens his eyes, he knows Blondie is gone. But Justice (or Vengeance, hell if he knows but he doesn't care, because he's out of options and desperate, and he'll do whatever either glowy counterpart asks if it means he gets to see her open her eyes).

“ _The wounds have healed_ ,” the distorted voice falls from his mouth. “ _What ails her cuts deeper than mortal flesh._ ”

Varric breathes, and tries not to snap that he's a  _dwarf_ , and he doesn't understand what the hell is going on and that he doesn't care about what's wrong, only how it can be fixed. “Can you do something about it?” he asks instead, but he can't keep the anger completely out of his voice.

There's a hand on his shoulder, but the Inquisitor says nothing, only offers her support, and with his next breath Varric reels in his temper. He's tired, Maker take him he's _exhausted,_ but he won't break now – not now that there's a chance, however small.

Justice is quiet where he sits, at once so human in manner, but the light that surrounds him is anything but. His palm rests on Cassandra's brow, the light casting an almost ethereal glow, and if she weren't so still Varric would have been tempted to claim she looked beautiful. But the words seem too final ( _beauty in death_ , and he won't go there), and so he keeps them from leaving his mouth. 

The hours drag by more slowly than any in the long days that have already passed, but despite the anxiety that has been his constant companion for so long, Varric takes a seat, draws a starved breath–

–and waits.

.

.

.

She wakes, and it's to a voice.

There's no Throne at her back and no soft hands in her hair, but there's a weight on her brow, pressing down like a headache, and when she opens her eyes it's to bright, bright blue, like the Skyhold summit on a clear day–

“ _You are not lost.”_

The voice rings, the toll of a bell between her ears and she can't tell if it's coming from behind her or in front or her or everywhere at once.

“ _Seek it, and you shall find your exit.”_

She tries to breathe but it  _hurts_ , and it feels like she's being held under water, and the pressure on her brow grows heavier with every second until she can barely stand it. She wants to scream, but it's without sound. 

“ _It is time to wake up,”_ the voice continues, a jarringly painful drum against her skull, and she feels like she could throw up.

 _I am awake_ , she wants to say, but the words sound different in her mind, now. And so, “I am awake,” she says, wraps her tongue around them and forces them out, and she knows then what's different from all the other times. She knows what's wrong. 

She knows that _she is wrong._

“I am not awake.”

“ _No,”_ the voice says, and the pressure on her brow becomes almost unbearable.  _“Not yet.”_

.

.

.

“ _Ugh,”_  she says, and Varric's heart stops.

Justice removes his hand smoothly, the blue glow fades to nothing, and when Anders moves out of the way Varric is there to take his place. Her eyes are open, and she's blinking into the dim light, and he's never been happier, he thinks, and the feeling is almost overwhelming.

“Varric?” Her voice is a croak, such a weak imitation of the sharp tones he knows, and her accent thick and slurred with the lethargy of a long sleep.

Out of the corner of his eye he sees Anders take his leave, slipping out soundlessly, and though there's a world of things he wants to say –  _needs_  to say, now, after everything – Varric doesn't have the mind to think about it, not now that she's awake and looking at him.

“About time you woke up,” he says, and draws his levity from the sight of the furrow of her brow, the tired blink of her eyes. “Almost had me worried you'd keep me waiting forever.”

Confusion flickers across her expression, and he memorizes the movements, the small shifts and creases. He purges the image of her still face from his mind. “What happened?” she asks.

He doesn't tell her – there's too much to tell, too many words and he doesn't care about words, not now. Instead Varric laughs and kisses her, hands cradling her face with less care than he should probably show, considering her state. She's too disoriented to respond properly but it doesn't matter, because with her next breath her hands come to rest against his sides, and even if she doesn't have her answers there is understanding in the way her grip tightens as she finds her strength.

When he pulls back her eyes have cleared a little, and there's a small smile for him at the corner of her mouth. “I feel like I have missed something,” she murmurs, as she reaches up to touch his face, wiping her thumb along his cheek, and he feels the wetness, but she doesn't speak of it.

Varric only grins, and he can't keep his laughter in now as it spills, raw and unbridled from his gut.

“Oh, Seeker – you have no idea.”

.

.

.

The day goes by almost too quickly for her to keep up, and there's a steady stream of visitors at her bedside. The Inquisitor, brow lessened now from the thoughts that had plagued her so before the final battle, grips her hand and tells her “ _never_  give me another scare like that, please?”

Vivienne arrives with a comb, and proceeds to fix her hair without asking, claiming that “with all the people you'll be greeting, my dear, I will at least have you looking presentable.” Josephine joins her, with an update on the goings-on of the visiting nobility, and hiding a knowing smile, tells her that she's been in touch with the Pentaghasts and told them of her recovery, but assured them that a visit to Skyhold is not necessary.

Bull recounts the events of the battle that she missed, in near excruciating detail and with accompanying hand-gestures, his laughter loud and welcome when Cassandra adds remarks of her own. Then with an unbearably wide smile he calls her _b_ _asalit-an_ , and tells her that "anyone who can take being crushed by a dragon and live to tell the tale is one I'd have at my back any day", and that when she's up for it, they'll finally try flipping one of Cullen's recruits.  

Dorian strides in around noontime, kicks his feet up on the bed and proceeds to spend an hour reading from a book that he assures her “puts that crass novel you like so much to shame”, and when she covers her face with her hands at the parts that makes Varric's depictions of romance seem chaste, he only raises his voice, and laughs when she tries to shove him off the chair.

Sera stops by to tell her in no uncertain terms that Cassandra should be glad she woke up when she did, that she was just about to get her ink and doodle on her face, because it “looked so damn depressing and it was making everyone like bloody ghosts”. 

Blackwall's greeting is the most subdued of the lot. He inquires after her health, but there's a relief in eyes neither of them acknowledge out loud. Cassandra doesn't tell him she knows he was the one who carried her from the battle, or that Varric told her he'd spent an entire night just sitting at her bedside. But when he turns to leave she stops him.

“If you have the time,” she says. “I should like to spar, when I am better.”

The smile that greets her words makes it hard to stifle her own, and when he bows before he takes his leave, adding an “I'd be honoured, Seeker Cassandra.”, she shakes her head.

“Just...Cassandra, if you would.” And if his breath catches, she pretends she didn't hear it.

Cole lingers a little in the doorway before he enters, to offer a small smile and some cryptic words – “A skip in their step. Their laughter, real now. The walls breathe again with her waking. He did not break.” – and leaves a flower on her nightstand. Her favourite, of course, and Cassandra can only shake her head, but tucks it between the pages of Dorian's book for safekeeping.

Cullen joins her when the sun has dipped down behind the Frostbacks, and brings a calm Cassandra finds in the company of few others, and after so many visitors it is a dearly welcome thing. He briefs her on the state of the recruits, morale and otherwise, and of the Inquisition overall, and then they simply sit for a while in quiet prayer.

It's late evening when the very last of her many well-wishers take her leave – Leliana, after delivering a rather extensive report on the events following their victory (which is mostly just gossip, really), and a plate of honeyed cakes (“Kennis sends her best wishes”) that Cassandra is loath to admit held her attention more than her news – and when the door finally closes she is left with only the silence of her quarters.

There's a cup of tea in her hands, and she clings to the small warmth it gives, unable to let her mind rest. She's missed days (over a week, she's been told), and the thought is an uneasy itch at the bottom of her spine. She feels too restless for sleep – too awake, even if she's been up all day and it's steadily getting darker beyond the high windows, through which she can spot the mountaintops in the distance. 

The door opens then, admitting Varric, who's been suspiciously absent throughout her many visits, and despite her current state of mind, his arrival succeeds in settling some of her worries. 

“Still awake?” he asks, offering a smile as he approaches the bed.

Cassandra snorts. “I think it will be some time yet before I can sleep again.” But despite her attempted lightness, Varric flinches – it's such a brief thing, but she catches it before it's gone. And she sees it, then – the thing that every one of her visitors have avoided talking about but that had been evident on their faces. It's visible in the tension in his shoulders and his tired eyes, telling tales of long nights spent keeping vigil.

She wants, suddenly, to change the subject. “I see you found it,” she says, pointing to the wooden box sitting by her bed.

His grin is a quick thing, gone before it's had time to settle. “You should hide your secrets better, Seeker, if you don't want anyone to find them.”

“You speak from experience, I take it.”

Varric laughs, and forgoing the chair, comes to take a seat on the bed. His weight sinks into the mattress, and Cassandra draws comfort from the contact. She wants to reach out, to curl her fingers around his, but the cup in her grip prevents it. As it is, there are many things she wants to do, and many things she wants to ask about; there's still so much she doesn't know.

“How did I come to wake?” she asks then, carefully, as though testing how her question will be received. “I cannot remember anything, but from what I have gathered, it was no small miracle.”

His expression hides numerous things and she wants to ask about them all, but all he offers is a cryptic shrug and – “Had some help from an old friend.” And Cassandra knows by his tone that it's all he'll say on the subject.

“You will tell me about it,” she demands, tone brooking no argument.

Varric laughs softly. “Of course,” he says, and there is sincerity there, Cassandra finds. “But not tonight,” he declares, as he pulls out a leather folder she'd recognize anywhere.  _His notes?_ “Tonight we're talking about something else.”

She eyes the folder, curious. “And what would that be?”

He grins, and it lifts her heart. “Just some things for a chapter I'm writing. I'd like your insight.” 

Of course that's not all there is to it. She's not very good at reading between the lines, not like he is, but he's making it clear enough for even her to see that whatever is coming, it's not just about one of his stories. 

“Alright.” She puts her cup down on the tray. “I am listening.”

“Good,” Varric says, a clever twinkle in his eyes that has a strange anticipation unfurling in her belly. “So tell me, Seeker,” he begins, in much the same way that he would a teasing remark, but there's an oddly serious light in his eyes when he asks her–

“Boy or girl?”  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anders is often portrayed as willing to do everything for Hawke, but I also like to think that if any of Hawke's companions needed it, he'd do anything he could to help them, too, even if it means coming out of hiding.
> 
> Basalit-an: a non-Qunari worthy of respect


End file.
